Well in the private sector unions are often necessary because you have bosses and owners who seek to maximize profits , at times at the expense of the workers wages and rights . In the public sector no such relationship exists . Public workers get their wages from budgets that are decided by democratically elected legislators . Allowing workers to collectively bargain against legislators perverts the democratic process they essentially get two votes . Once during actual elections and again as a bargaining unit against the legislators add to that that public unions often stack the deck by essentially sitting at both sides of the bargaining table . The unions contribute to politicians , politicians raise taxes and give in to the unions demands and raise their wages , unions reap the benefits and the cycle goes round and round with democrats and unions both getting rich at taxpayers expense . In sum , unions make sense in the private sector but in the public sector not as much .