By Alyssa Battistoni / Salon
/ Feb. 24, 2011
Amid all the rightful outrage over Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to do away with collective bargaining rights for public sector unions in Wisconsin, one important point has been neglected: The demise of public sector unions would be most detrimental to women and African-Americans, who make up a disproportionate share of the public sector workforce.
Much has been made of Walker’s decision to exempt from his plan firefighter, police and state trooper unions — conveniently, the only three public sector unions that endorsed him. But as Dana Goldstein points out, not only are the exempted unions largely Republican-leaning, they’re also overwhelmingly male — over 70 percent of law enforcement personnel are male, as are over 96 percent of firefighters. On the other hand, many of the non-exempt unions represent professions that are disproportionately female — approximately 80 percent of teachers are women, for example, as are 95 percent of nurses.
African-Americans are also disproportionately employed in the public sector: According to a report by the nonprofit United for a Fair Economy, blacks are 30 percent more likely than the overall workforce to hold public sector jobs. Kai Wright reports that preliminary data from a study by Steven Pitts of U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Labor Education and Research shows that 14.5 percent of all public sector workers in the nation are black, compared to 10 percent in most other sectors, and around a quarter of black workers are employed in public administration, as compared to under 17 percent of all white workers.
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Hey women didn’t write the Bible, Talmud, Koran. God is a GUY, guys run the show. Adam obeyed, Eve didn’t. Americas first voters were white male land owners. No intelligent person should be surprised that when push comes to shove, MALES are in a better position to do the shoving.