This article examines the compensation of state and local workers, who account for 20 million of the 23 million civilian government workers in the United States. State and local workers include teachers, college instructors, police officers, health care administrators, and many other...

Organized labor’s judicial, political, and public image is often associated with violence and anarchy. These descriptions are not spun out of whole cloth: violent uprisings that challenged the political and economic order were common in the early days of American labor unionism. But the...