The governor’s showdown is more subtle

You have to understand what the Carey era deals for New York City entailed. Basically, the politicians and the unions agreed to gut public services to preserve the sinecures of public employees with seniority and retirees. Thousands were laid off, any many of the rest basically stopped working.

Class sizes soared to 50 in the public schools, but in exchange teachers gained "rights" not to be supervised and evaluated. Forty percent of the police force was laid off, and the rest stopped preventing crime. The infrastructure was allowed to fall apart -- some workers paid to fill potholes never bothered.

Workers who had benefitted from the retroactive pension deals of the preceding deals didn't give up a dime. But the pay and benefits of future public employees was drastically cut. As a result, for the next 30 years the City of New York could only hire people who couldn't get jobs elsewhere -- even though its labor costs were high. The unions argued that since new hires had low pay, no one had the right to expect much of any of them.

Meanwhile, most unionized workers had the state grant them the right to live outside New York City, where public services were better. Many of the city's elected officials also moved to the suburbs, in secret. For those that remained, special schools were set up, free parking was arranged so they wouldn't have to use collapsing mass transit, and there was even a "politician beach" that only certain people could use.

Are the unions prepared to repeat those deals? Absolutely. But let's not pretend they are something other than what they are.

Just think: if it weren't for the much-criticized Citizens United ruling, nobody would be able to raise money for any of these campaigns... except the unions, of course!