Study: Public employee unions hurt private-sector workers

Powerful public-sector unions may be good for government employees, but they’re bad news for private-sector workers.

Carrie Sheffield, Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute, spelled out differences between public-sector and private-sector unions in a CEI study published Tuesday.

Sheffield found that public employees — who enjoy costly pension guarantees and other expensive perks — typically have more education and higher income than the average American worker.

“Government employee unions create a more expensive and protected class of workers at the expense of nonunion workers, students, and taxpayers,” Sheffield wrote.

The trend has gotten worse as public employee unions’ increasing influence has emboldened union bosses “to become more directly involved in politics and more radical in their demands,” she explained.

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