On The Corner today, I point out an example of how the aims of public unions and private unions are often at odds.  (Picking up on a subject broached at UnionWatch on Monday.)  In Wisconsin, public unions are actively trying to kill private sector union jobs in order to exact revenge on Governor Scott Walker:

In late January of this year, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee released a study detailing the dire state of black-male employment in the nation's largest cities. Milwaukee itself ranked third-to-last (behind only Detroit and Buffalo), with a black-male-employment rate of only 44.7 percent -- a drop of 28.7 percent since 1970. [...]

At the same time, a bill was working its way through the Wisconsin legislature that would secure a new mine in Northern Wisconsin. Gogebic Taconite, a mining company based on the state's northern edge, is seeking to set up an iron-ore mine in the sparsely populated north woods. The company is seeking to make a $1.5 billion investment, which would create thousands of union jobs not only in the northern part of the state, but in Milwaukee, which is home to several companies (P&H Mining Equipment, Caterpillar), that either supply or manufacture mining equipment. The former president of Bucyrus, a manufacturer bought by Caterpillar, says that the bill will help sustain 10,000 manufacturing jobs in the Milwaukee area. (Importantly, the bill doesn't change any environmental regulations; it simply speeds up the timeline with which permits are approved.)

In the past, this is the type of bill that would have enjoyed bipartisan support. Democrats in the northern part of the state and in Milwaukee would see the economic benefit to their districts.

But this is Wisconsin in 2012.  And the public unions run the Democratic party. [...]

In the meantime, good union manufacturing jobs in Milwaukee continue to vanish, and the economic plan for most northern Wisconsinites is to wait for the American Pickers guys to show up and buy a pair of rusty candlesticks buried in their garage. The national unions continue to oppose the mine, which would benefit their own members directly. 

Two state senators, one moderate Republican and one liberal Democrat (whose district houses the new mine) have unveiled a compromise bill that is likely to go nowhere, as it taxes the mining company $25 million for the privilege of creating jobs in the state.  If that version of the bill passes, don't expect unemployment to budge an inch.

This just may be the perfect microcosm of California's public sector travails. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

California State University East Bay professors who played hooky to protest state budget cuts - but then put in for a full day's pay - are getting a pass from the system's chancellor.

The reason why? The campus inexplicably failed to ask teachers to sign in for work during the demonstrations:

At CSU Dominguez Hills in Carson (Los Angeles County), where there was a sign-in system, 359 faculty members did not work that day - meaning their pay could be docked.

But at Cal State East Bay - which relied on the honor system - only four faculty members reported not working. Another 41 took some type of personal time off.

Few cities have as little control over their pension systems as Houston. The state legislature dictates benefits, and the pension funds are administered by a board composed of public employees who benefit from the system. City officials are not allowed access to any of the financial data about the system which might give them insight into how well the system is run, how high the benefits are, and how much projected costs might rise. Not surprisingly, with annual required pension contributions rising and now making up 9 percent of the budget, Houston mayor Annise Parker is lobbying for reforms to the system. Short of that, she'll head to court to demand access to the system's numbers.

Last summer in Wisconsin, public unions attempted to recall six Republican state senators; they succeeded in winning two of those races, with Democrats falling one seat short re-taking control of the state senate.  The reason for the recalls was clear; unions wanted to exact revenge on the GOP senators who had supported Governor Scott Walker's new law that virtually eliminated public sector collective bargaining and required increased pension and health care contributions from state and local employees.

Yet while the state senate recalls were in full swing, if someone had dropped in from Jupiter, they would have seen campaigns that replicated typical election year contests.  Republicans were criticized for cutting school aid, "slashing" health care, and the like.  Clearly, with collective bargaining, unions recognized they didn't have the silver bullet issue they craved - so they went with the standard anti-GOP playbook.  So while the union imbroglio was the only reason those senators were up for recall, Democratic candidates ignored the issue completely.

But now, the public sector collective bargaining issue has finally cropped up as a major campaign issue.  Only this time, it's in a somewhat unexpected place - the race to replace Democrat Herb Kohl in the U.S. Senate.

I had previously posted on PSI about California Attorney General Kamala Harris' abuse of her office to hobble a pair of pension-reform initiatives. She gave a slanted and dishonest title and summary. Here is my newspaper column on the subject, in which I made the following point:

We expect judges, no matter their political stripes, to apply the law as written. We expect election officials to battle election fraud no matter their personal preference for the outcome. Likewise, we expect state attorney generals, who are the head of California's "Justice" Department after all, to provide fair title and summaries of all initiatives that are submitted to that office--even ones the AG personally doesn't like. Without any civic spiritedness, people eventually will lose faith that they can make change by following the rules.