I like to think this is due to the bad reputation unions have.
Digging a two mile tunnel eats half of the state budget? Police refuses to wear body cams? Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Rightly or not, in many people's minds unions are to blame.
I agree, but there are other dimensions to public sector unions that makes them worth keeping around: deterrence of the spoils system in politics, and the legal monopsony the state has on the labor and monopoly on credentialing in many cases.
> Digging a two mile tunnel eats half of the state budget?Police refuses to wear body cams? Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Rightly or not, in many people's minds unions are to blame.
If you were a contractor to a state and you scored a contract worth half the state's budget, would you consider that a success or a failure?
You would consider it a success! The examples you give show exactly how unions work in the self-interest of their members. If the tunnel costs half the state's budget, the tunnel workers are surely well-paid, police officers rather not wear body cams so that they can whack people with their batons without being prosecuted, and teachers rather not return to schools as long as the epidemic is ongoing.
Digging a two mile tunnel eats half of the state budget? Police refuses to wear body cams? Schools are slow to reopen after covid? Rightly or not, in many people's minds unions are to blame.