Poll: 53 Percent of Americans Favor Public Labor Unions
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Fifty three percent of Americans favor public sector unions, despite high-profile budget battles involving public employee unions in California and New Jersey, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released yesterday.
The same national survey found that 37 percent opposed unions, 22 percent strongly favored them and 24 percent strongly opposed them.
George Nee, the president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, said he wasn’t surprised by the results. “People, I think, understand the value of the labor movement in the state,” he told GoLocalProv.com.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBut John DePetro, a talk show host on WPRO 630 and public critic of public sector unions, doubted the results reflected local opinion. “Anyone who favors them has never lived in Rhode Island,” DePetro said. “Our problem is simple: the public sector union jobs are too generous and better than the private sector jobs. The pension and healthcare benefits of the unions are choking every community.”
According to a 2010 Cato Institute report, the total compensation for public sector unions in New England was $43.22 per hour, compared with $33.29 for private sector workers.
But Nee said a higher percentage of government workers have higher education levels than their private sector counterparts. “It wouldn’t be crazy to expect them to be compensated at a higher rate of pay,” Nee said.
“Perhaps people should think twice before they criticize too much,” he added.
