# "Public good" workers shouldn't be unionized **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 18, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121 "2012-04-18T03:55:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/41 "2012-04-18T20:21:45Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > How authoritarian. :rolleyes: In a free society, the level of a worker’s compensation should be the result of a negotiation between equals, not a present handed down by some all-powerful overlord. Workers are free to band together and price their labor at whatever the level the market will bear. That’s free enterprise, baby. And if you don’t like it, move to someplace more repressive. Look around. Economically speaking, this ain’t a free society. The one percent has things fairly well corralled. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/42 "2012-04-18T20:26:30Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > How authoritarian. :rolleyes: In a free society, the level of a worker’s compensation should be the result of a negotiation between equals, not a present handed down by some all-powerful overlord. Workers are free to band together and price their labor at whatever the level the market will bear. That’s free enterprise, baby. And if you don’t like it, move to someplace more repressive. Pretty much. It’s a very, very weird view that those whose jobs are some of the most essential for public welfare should be the least able to actually engage in collective negotiation in order to secure their personal welfare. Sicks’ view, beyond being fairly idiosyncratic, is pretty much wholly unsupported by logic or how business is actually conducted. Teacher salary schedules, for example, are revised all the time. The idea that when I sign my contract I’m not only agreeing to this year’s pay scale but to being locked into 20+ years of regimented increase is, shall we say, a bit off. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/43 "2012-04-18T20:26:57Z")
> [@CheeseDonkey](#): > > I once heard an interesting opinion that I would like to get your thoughts on. > > An individual once told me something to the effect of individuals in an organization that exists to protect or support the public good, like police officers, firemen and governmental employees, shouldn’t be allowed to unionize because once they unionize they stop caring about the good of the public and start caring mainly about the good of themselves. She cited a couple instances where, police officers who had done “ungood” things got their jobs back by the force of the union, which in her opinion was obviously not good for the public. > > What are your thoughts on that opinion? Does it makes sense, or is it hogwash? Two possibilities – either this individual is: 1. A committed communist who believes that workers can and should be motivated solely by the public good with no thought to their own selfish interests, or 2a. An idiot or 2b. A hypocrite (The two sub-cases are distinguished only by whether the individual genuinely doesn’t understand the inanity of the argument, or whether he does understand but uses it anyway in the hope of scoring some sort of point.) ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/44 "2012-04-18T20:30:07Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > Any ‘labor action’ by publc workers is not to the detriment of an ‘unfair, uncooperative’ corporation; it’s against the public they are supposed to be serving. I’d comment on the equation of “the public” with “the government”, but I already covered that – some people really do believe in communism, and thus consider the distinction to be illusory or irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/45 "2012-04-18T20:32:39Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > When you take the job, you’re told what your salary and compensation will be. Geez, I had no idea how many people here still believed in the political philosopy that says government fiat works better than free-market give-and-take… ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/46 "2012-04-18T20:37:16Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > I’d comment on the equation of “the public” with “the government”, but I already covered that – some people really do believe in communism, and thus consider the distinction to be illusory or irrelevant. I like the weirdness of the position, too. Teachers should be haggard, paying for basic supplies out of their own pockets, terrified of losing their jobs for no reason, forced to work unreasonable hours for no additional compensation, saddled with unreasonably sized classes, held to irrational standards and performance metrics… and if they object then _it’s their objection that’s bad for the public._ Of course, it’s weird enough to argue that people whose jobs contribute to the public good must _always_ place the public good above their own personal welfare, rather than finding an acceptable balance. I’m sure that we could, for instance, run police, fire, education (etc) on the cheap if we press-ganged folks and set them up in gulags, releasing them only long enough to do their jobs, too. But “the public good” is not the only standard that we use. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/47 "2012-04-18T20:41:31Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Geez, I had no idea how many people here still believed in the political philosopy that says government fiat works better than free-market give-and-take… I haven’t had time to reply to much, but I wanted to address this, since I already clarified what I meant by that statement a few posts ago. My ‘told’ I meant that you know what the pay and benefits are when you take the job. I don’t know what’s so fiat-like about that…that’s the case at any job. That doesn’t make it any less free-market; if I post a job at $24k and nobody with appropriate quailfications applies, that’s the market telling me that I am not offering what the market demands. If a qualified individual agrees to take said job at $37k, then the market has worked. I think I got a good deal by hiring that person for that amount, and that person is satisfied (hopefully) because they feel that is a fair rate for their labor. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/48 "2012-04-18T20:44:18Z")
Anyone who thinks public employee unions are a bad thing is welcome to take over my husband’s job. He’s a CNA working on the locked dementia unit at the state veterans’ home. Thanks to the recent loss of collective bargaining, working conditions and schedules have been getting worse. There are no more written work rules, and yet he can be fired immediately for breaking a rule he doesn’t know exists. Because no one wants to work there anymore, or they hire people who soon quit once they find out what it’s like, the facility is seriously understaffed. But they won’t work short-handed, which means that everyone is working mega-overtime, double shifts and/or working your days off, often with little to no notice. He’s lucky if he gets to keep his every other weekend off and every other Tuesday and Friday. But he hasn’t had two days off in a row for months now. This is a job in which he deals constantly with bodily fluids and violent residents, and he has to stay calm and professional. It’s no cakewalk, and there’s no phoning it in. He has to be at 100% for the entire shift. But hey, if you think having a “union” job is a stroll down Easy Street, come on down. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/49 "2012-04-18T20:47:35Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > My ‘told’ I meant that you know what the pay and benefits are when you take the job. I don’t know what’s so fiat-like about that…that’s the case at any job. It’s odd that you do not grok that at every other job, you accept an initial starting figure and then can renegotiate at later points. Your claim that you accept a job and then cannot attempt to negotiate is, indeed, accepting a pay scale, in perpetuity, by fiat. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/50 "2012-04-18T20:52:59Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > It’s odd that you do not grok that at every other job, you accept an initial starting figure and then can renegotiate at later points. Your claim that you accept a job and then cannot attempt to negotiate is, indeed, accepting a pay scale, in perpetuity, by fiat. I get it. If you want that privilege, I recommend taking a job were you know from the outset that you will be able to negotiate. Taking a government job where you know you may not negotiate your way out of a pay structure is not fiat; it’s a condition of your employment. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/51 "2012-04-18T20:59:02Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > If you want that privilege, I recommend taking a job were you know from the outset that you will be able to negotiate. You know from the outset that you can negotiate in any job setting where there is a union you can join. Problem solved. > [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > Taking a government job where you know you may not negotiate your way out of a pay structure is not fiat; it’s a condition of your employment. You do not understand what ‘fiat’ means. [ > [@](#): > > 1: a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort > 2: an authoritative determination : dictate \ ]([FIAT Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat)) “This is not only the pay scale that you are agreeing to this year, but the one you are agreeing to in perpetuity and you may not renegotiate it at any point for any reason.” That’s pretty much a perfect example of a pronouncement made by fiat. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/52 "2012-04-18T22:39:57Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > I get it. If you want that privilege, I recommend taking a job were you know from the outset that you will be able to negotiate. Taking a government job where you know you may not negotiate your way out of a pay structure is not fiat; it’s a condition of your employment. I see you didn’t answer my questions. You may have missed them. If I do serve the public, under what conditions will you allow me to no longer serve the public or consequently am I enslaved to serving the “common good” in perpetuity? In other words, if the conditions of the job are not to my liking, why can I not leave temporarily and unpaid (striking) or permanently and unpaid (quitting)? About union protection: Should I be required to work outside of my contracted hours for no pay because I serve the public? Should I be required to pay for my own supplies simply to do my job because I serve the public? Should I be required to provide paper, pencils and other educational supplies to my students out of my own money because I serve the public? Should I accept verbal abuse from students and parents and in some cases physical abuse from students because I serve the public? Should I accept intimidation from administrators because they choose to take actions that violate state law and they do not want me to take advatage of legal protection? And a further question: why should someone working in a public sector job be forced to give up the same rights as those in a private sector job. Or is your contention that those with qualifications applicable to the publice service field do so in support of the common good? If so, why do you not require this sacrifice of everyone? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/53 "2012-04-19T00:40:07Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > I haven’t had time to reply to much, but I wanted to address this, since I already clarified what I meant by that statement a few posts ago. > > My ‘told’ I meant that you know what the pay and benefits are when you take the job. I don’t know what’s so fiat-like about that…that’s the case at any job. > [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > I get it. If you want that privilege, I recommend taking a job were you know from the outset that you will be able to negotiate. Taking a government job where you know you may not negotiate your way out of a pay structure is not fiat; it’s a condition of your employment. And you say you’re a public employee? I’m asking because I was a public employee (before I retired) and I’ve never heard of a public employee job like this. In my state, we were hired under a series of three year contracts. As the end of each contract approached, we’d negotiate the terms of the next contract. And the main part of those negotiations were salary. I find it hard to believe that any government was offering the lifetime contract that you are claiming. You’re saying that when you took the job, they could already tell you what your paycheck was going to be twenty or thirty years in the future? They had already fixed a figure without knowing what the economy would do in the upcoming decades? That seems really surprising. It also surprises me that a government agency would have the authority to set salaries so far into the future. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/54 "2012-04-19T01:27:54Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > You do not understand what ‘fiat’ means. > > “This is not only the pay scale that you are agreeing to this year, but the one you are agreeing to in perpetuity and you may not renegotiate it at any point for any reason.” That’s pretty much a perfect example of a pronouncement made by fiat. Ok, I’ll give you that. I was taking ‘fiat’ in a more arbitrary sense…I think you’re kind of shoehorning it to fit, but I can’t argue. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I see you didn’t answer my questions. You may have missed them. > > If I do serve the public, under what conditions will you allow me to no longer serve the public or consequently am I enslaved to serving the “common good” in perpetuity? In other words, if the conditions of the job are not to my liking, why can I not leave temporarily and unpaid (striking) or permanently and unpaid (quitting)? > > About union protection: > Should I be required to work outside of my contracted hours for no pay because I serve the public? > Should I be required to pay for my own supplies simply to do my job because I serve the public? > Should I be required to provide paper, pencils and other educational supplies to my students out of my own money because I serve the public? > Should I accept verbal abuse from students and parents and in some cases physical abuse from students because I serve the public? > Should I accept intimidation from administrators because they choose to take actions that violate state law and they do not want me to take advatage of legal protection? > And a further question: why should someone working in a public sector job be forced to give up the same rights as those in a private sector job. Or is your contention that those with qualifications applicable to the publice service field do so in support of the common good? If so, why do you not require this sacrifice of everyone? Didn’t miss them, just didn’t have time. Apologies for the tenterhooks. You may discontinue your service at pretty much any time you like. You are free to leave any time, permanently and unpaid. If you choose to leave temporarily, your employer can change turn that dial to permanent. _Should I be required to work outside of my contracted hours for no pay because I serve the public?_ No. One course of action would be to quit. Another might be to make it known at a meeting of the school board, or the PTA. Or call the newspaper. _Should I be required to pay for my own supplies simply to do my job because I serve the public?_ No. Of course you shouldn’t. _Should I be required to provide paper, pencils and other educational supplies to my students out of my own money because I serve the public?_ No. _Should I accept verbal abuse from students and parents and in some cases physical abuse from students because I serve the public?_ No. _Should I accept intimidation from administrators because they choose to take actions that violate state law and they do not want me to take advatage of legal protection?_ Why aren’t you taking advantage of legal protection? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And you say you’re a public employee? I’m asking because I was a public employee (before I retired) and I’ve never heard of a public employee job like this. > > In my state, we were hired under a series of three year contracts. As the end of each contract approached, we’d negotiate the terms of the next contract. And the main part of those negotiations were salary. > > I find it hard to believe that any government was offering the lifetime contract that you are claiming. You’re saying that when you took the job, they could already tell you what your paycheck was going to be twenty or thirty years in the future? They had already fixed a figure without knowing what the economy would do in the upcoming decades? That seems really surprising. It also surprises me that a government agency would have the authority to set salaries so far into the future. I didn’t look to see what state you work in. No, we don’t have contracts. Wait…so you do have the chance to negotiate. Is that because you are represented by a union? I don’t have a lifetime contract. If I fuck up, I can be fired. And yes, I can supposedly look at a chart and figure out how much I’ll make…but for the last several years, I forget how many, those increases have been frozen. So the chart is there, but if the money isn’t there to pay it, you sit until there is. In my last position, my salary was actually set by the legislature. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/55 "2012-04-19T02:15:29Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Specifically, what deals do you refer to? The deals where the pensions were determined, depending on the municipality, by the last year or two of employment. And the soon-to-be-retirees gamed the system by working every overtime shift they could, artificially inflating the salary that their pension would be based on. Of course, the younger workers would step out of the way, with the understanding that at the end of their careers, the favor would be returned. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/56 "2012-04-19T02:24:08Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > And a further question: why should someone working in a public sector job be forced to give up the same rights as those in a private sector job. Or is your contention that those with qualifications applicable to the publice service field do so in support of the common good? If so, why do you not require this sacrifice of everyone? Because 1) their job exists solely to benefit the community and 2) there’s no other entity to replace them. I’ll go a bit further and add that I think that the only people who should be able to have the power of a union to negotiate are workers who can be replaced fairly easily. You can’t fire the police department and hire a bunch of guys from down the street when their holding you up for more goodies. In today’s world, I think any worker should be allowed to “strike” to get what they want. If they don’t think you are worth it, they can hire someone else. If their calculation is wrong then the company will suffer and eventually go out of business to the guy down the street who saw the value you claimed and hired you. Anything else is prettified blackmail. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/57 "2012-04-19T02:37:54Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Perhaps **Magellan** was referring to [the fact that](http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/11/bad-apples): > > Total employer compensation cost in 2011 averaged $40.76 per hour for state and local workers; for private industry workers it was $28.24 per hour. The disparities are also big for federal workers. A janitor working for Uncle Sam makes $30,110 a year, while his or her private-sector peer makes $24,188. Federal graphic designers, “recreation workers,” and even P.R. flacks all make between 50 percent and 100 percent more than their private-sector colleagues. While I realize that that’s a favorite little nugget for the anti-union crowd to throw out, it’s a bogus statistic that tells you nothing about compensation for a given job. The government doesn’t have a lot of grocery stores and WalMarts, the likes of which drag down the average hourly wage of private sector workers. Hell, the BLS, which is where those numbers come from originally (I realize it’s more fun to pull them from a “Scaife-Koch and friends” site, but they leave out the good parts) publish a document years ago detailing that very thing, to help eliminate confusion. If only people would read it (or stop pretending they weren’t aware of that fact). Hell, I’d take about a $60K pay cut to work for the government. I’d probably get a decent pension, but with that extra $60K, I’ll take care of my own pension. I also noticed that there was some cherry-picking of professions in that article; ones that are well known to pay shite out here in private sector. More [here](http://www.bls.gov/mlr/1993/05/art2full.pdf) (PDF): > [@](#): > > At first glance, compensation costs between State and local governments and private industry appear vastly different. In March 1992, employer costs for employee compesation (wages paid plus employer provided benefits) averaged $23.49 per hours worked in State and local governments and $16.14 in private industry - a difference of almost 50 percent. Such a comparison can be quite misleading, however, as was noted when these data were first released in June 1992. In fact, the differences in the cost of compensation in the public and private sectors stem from a number of factors, particularly the large variation in the work activities and occupational structures of the two sectors. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/58 "2012-04-19T05:56:14Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > …Corporations are supposed to serve their customers, but we can all find cases of corporations not just not serving their customers, but actively bending them over the table and screwing them. Every business has its bad eggs. :dubious: No they aren’t. Corporations exist to generate profit for their owners, serving customers is just a means to that end. If they can generate more profit by scewing their customers insead of serving them why wouldn’t they, and why would anyone think they’d do different. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/59 "2012-04-19T06:01:24Z")
> [@Sicks\_Ate](#): > > And yes, I can supposedly look at a chart and figure out how much I’ll make…but for the last several years, I forget how many, those increases have been frozen. So the chart is there, but if the money isn’t there to pay it, you sit until there is. So let me get this straight. You were offered a job with a promised salary. You accepted the job. Now your employer is refusing to pay you the salary that you were promised. The problem in your life isn’t a union. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2012, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121/60 "2012-04-19T06:08:47Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > their job exists solely to benefit the community Wait a second. You’re saying people exist solely to benefit the community? And the government gets to decide how their work should best be applied for the benefit of the community? And the people have no individual say in the matter? I apologize for calling you a socialist earlier. You’ve obviously crossed over into full-blown communism. Me, I’m not a communist. I don’t think the people exist to serve the government. I think the government exists to serve the people. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/public-good-workers-shouldnt-be-unionized/619121.md?page=4)