The Beholden State
March 21, 2010 Filed in: Unions
Column: Steven Malanga, City Journal How public employees became members of
the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale
to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in
slower motion. The story starts half a century ago, when California
public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to
elect their own bosses—that is, sympathetic politicians who would
grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support.
Over time, the unions have turned the state’s politics completely
in their favor. The result: unaffordable benefits for civil
servants; fiscal chaos in Sacramento and in cities and towns across
the state; and angry taxpayers finally confronting the unionized
masters of California’s unsustainable government…