Are public employee unions appropriate?

It’s time to write about the public employee protests in Wisconsin. I got an e-mail this morning from an activist who is rallying Utah’s public workers to come to the Utah Capitol on Saturday, which is going to coincide with similar rallies at other state capitols.
This column by Jonah Goldberg expresses some valid points. Public employee unions are insidious because they pit themselves in negotiations with politicians over money provided by taxpayers. The public interest is ignored.

This is in no way similar to democracy protesters in the Middle East, as some have suggested. It is similar to protesters in Greece, where public workers won’t stand for the kinds of cuts that are necessary.
Private sector unions pit labor against management and, at least at their inception, corrected real problems with substandard working conditions. They also negotiate against the backdrop of competitive market pressures.
As Goldberg notes, even FDR believed “…collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.”
What is happening in Wisconsin clearly shows a disconnection with reality in an economy that has forced many private-sector workers into lower wages and reduced benefits, if they were lucky enough to keep their jobs at all. The outcome of this battle could impact other states where cuts are looming, as well. As this story shows, it could get ugly.
One more thing: A reporter at something called Buffalo Beast pretended to be billionaire businessman and conservative activist David Koch and called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. He apparently got the governor to make some statements about strategy, although those remarks are easy to take out of the context of who the governor thought he was speaking with and what politics are about.
I like this statement by the Society of Professional Journalists (on whose foundation board I sit), which condemns Buffalo Beast for violating “the highest levels of journalism ethics.”