The Times Has a Poll...

So, there is a NYTimes poll out today.  Here.

They lead, of course, with the bad news for labor.  Labor unions are not that popular, though they are more popular than they are unpopular.  Interestingly, a plurality doesn't know enough about unions to offer an opinion.  Likely because for most people, unions are like unicorns. (See what I did there...)

The rest of the polls comes out very well for unions and public sector workers.  For instance, are salaries and benefits too high for public sector workers?  Well, 26% say TOO HIGH!  25% say too low.  36% say about right. The rest think magenta is a type of Italian food.  So, keeping score at home?  Fifty-one percent say public workers are either paid fairly or not enough.  Twenty-five percent agree with Walker-Christie-Kasich.

When asked whether wages and benefits should be cut to balance budgets, 37% favor cutting wages and 56% oppose.  When asked whether public sector workers should lose collective bargaining rights, 33% favor no collective bargaining, 60% favor collective bargaining.

Most interesting to me was what people thought should be done to balance state budgets. A plurality of 40% said raise taxes, 22% said cut public employees benefits, 20% said cut spending on infrastructure, 3% said cut education and 15% think fireflies are actually pixies.

What is striking about these opinions is how absent they are in most news coverage.  True, most news coverage is focused on Charlie Sheen at the moment, but when discussing budget woes at the state and federal levels, almost every conversation in the media outside of Rachel Maddow's show focuses on spending cuts - austerity.  In fact there is a lot of support for raising taxes.

Given the breathless coverage of Chris Christie - whom the self-same Times said had found the perfect villain in public service unions - it's interesting that what Dan Malloy is proposing in Connecticut - a combination of spending cuts and tax increases - is actually more popular than the knife-to-the-bone ideas of Republicans.

George Gallup once said he was amazed at how the American people could reach the right conclusions with the wrong information.  Here, they seem to have reached for the compassionate, judicious conclusion in the absence of any information.  As noted, the Sunday Gasbags shows had Christie and Daniels on, but only one union spokesman - and that was because of external pressure.  The attacks on public unions - and unions in general - was clearly seen as news, but only one side was given a megaphone.

That comes through in the final question of the poll.  Do you think labor unions have too much power in politics.  A plurality of 37% said yes, whereas 19% said too little and 29% said the right amount.  That makes 48% saying the right amount or too little, but how can anyone rightly say that unions have too much clout in politics?  Name the last major battle that unions won in the political arena?  Free trade agreements?  EPIC?  I can't remember the last time the unions got what they wanted from Congress.  Maybe the saving of GM and Chrysler, but the unions conceded a lot to make that happen.

Unions are still easily vilified, and the news media are happy to carry that water.  They always have, going back to the days of Terrence Powderly and the Knights of Labor.  Labor unions are assaults upon the bastions of wealth, and that can make the middle class nervous.  What if they aim for the Upper East Side and hit Queens instead?

But the fact that unions are enjoying solid support from the American people, despite being vilified consistently  since their very inception is a heartening moment for me.