Public-Sector Unions http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/brown200510.html

In an age where only 7.2 percent of private-sector workers in the United States belong to unions, it may come as a surprise that 37.4 percent of all public-sector (i.e. government) workers are unionized. Put another way, there are more public-sector workers in unions (7.9 million) than in the private-sector (7.4 million), despite the fact that there are five times as many workers in private industry.

1 In historical terms, public-sector workers are more densely unionized today than private-sector workers were at their peak in 1953 (35 percent).2 Ironically, this paradox -- of public-sector power and private-sector weakness -- represents a major problem as much for public-sector unions themselves as it does for crippled private-sector unions or non-unionized workers.