Unions need to give the public a break

[Geee]

La Times:

SACRAMENTO — Even in deep blue California, where Democrats dominate, organized labor is losing public popularity.

That's a general statement, based on nonpartisan polling.

Specifically, public employee unions are tarnishing all labor, according to the pollster.

He pinpoints pension envy: public employees pulling down generous retirement benefits that private sector taxpayers began losing years ago. That's the long-term public gripe.

 

And recently in the traditional labor stronghold of the San Francisco Bay Area, voters have especially soured on unions because of two very annoying public transit strikes.

 

"When voters are thinking about labor, they're by and large thinking about public employees," says Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. Government workers "have a certain amount of negative drag to them."

 

"Voters have been hearing about local government services being cut because of pension obligations, and that rubs them the wrong way."

 

That's compounded in the Bay Area — "ground zero for labor support," he says — by rail transit strikes.

 

A Field Poll released last week reported that voter views of labor unions statewide "have taken a decidedly negative turn over the past 21/2 years.... There has been a net 16-point swing in voter sentiment from the positive to negative side."