The attack on public service trade unionism in Wisconsin has fuelled the debate on the right of public sector unions to exist. The blogs of the Economist magazine have regularly debated this question and a new post uncharacteristically makes the case for unions ‘it would be nice if vulnerable-feeling Americans recognised themselves in public-sector workers.
Those workers unionised, at least in theory, to prevent their employers—American taxpayers—from giving them a raw deal. You'd think that a lot of American workers would empathize with the sentiment’
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/02/labour_unions