[quote=CA renter]
Too many people are completely incapable of understanding the age-old battle between capital and labor. It is behind every instance of slavery, every war, every revolution. I think we are headed down a very dark, dangerous path.

Naturally, the past few weeks have been very upsetting and frustrating to those of us who are pro-labor. [/quote]

CAR: My conservative bent is no secret, as is my antipathy towards (private sector) unions. I’m not anti-Labor per se, but I have spent many years battling unions on my projects and cannot tell you the number of times (but it’s probably in the high hundreds) that I went head-to-head with union supervisors, project managers, etc over nonsensical work rules, “mandated” guidelines, etc that in many cases would double or treble labor costs on a project.

I take your point on the battle of Labor versus Capital, but I would also point out that there are now significant protections in place, along with powerful agencies, that prevent wage and labor abuses. Agencies like OSHA and FLRB and protections like FLSA. Not to be glib, but I doubt we’re going to see child labor at the DMV anytime soon.

On the public sector front, I agree with you and BG that we should not demonize the individual workers and that many of the “spiking” examples are not only isolated, but used as political fodder to incite public anger. However, it has to be said that both politicians and public unions sat on the same side of the table whilst negotiating and that the taxpayers did get screwed. When solid blue states like California and Wisconsin react like they did (and exit polling in WI indicates that many union members and families pulled the lever for Walker), it would lead to the belief that huge changes are in the offing.