INTRODUCTION
I am delighted to be part of this symposium on labor in the “age of Obama,” and
I am especially pleased to discuss the public sector. For too long, scholars have
viewed public-sector labor relations as something of a boutique or specialty
subject. The many recent books and articles that describe (and generally decry) the
state of private-sector labor law and labor relations hardly mention the public
sector.1 Yet public-sector unions are one of the labor movement’s biggest success
stories. For some time, the union density rate in the public sector has been around
40%, while the private-sector rate is now less than 7%.2 Indeed, as of 2010, in the
United States more government employees were union members than private-sector
employees.3 In short, “the public sector” is over half of “labor” in the age of
Obama, and public-sector unions have achieved many of labor’s most significant
accomplishments in the past few decades. Scholars should take heed.
On the other hand, public-sector unions are now facing extraordinary
difficulties. In the initial draft of this Article, before the November 2010 elections, I
played with the “best of times, worst of times” cliché. By early 2011 it became
clear that public-sector unions are under attacks unprecedented in modern times.
Since public-sector unions did not even begin to win the right to bargain