Despite the fact that local government workers in Marin County receive wages higher than local government workers in over 99 percent of counties nationwide — even after adjusting for regional cost differences among the 50 states — the largest government union in Marin has formally authorized a strike, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

The dispute centers over the size of pay raises that will be provided over the next 3 years, as well as other unknown conditions. The unknown conditions reflect the fact that state law shrouds government union negotiations in secrecy, ensuring the taxpayers responsible for paying the entire cost of the eventual contract are kept in the dark.

The Marin IJ also reported that a salary survey revealed that Marin County workers are paid, on average, 7.8 percent higher more than their government peers in the Bay Area.

And this is on top of non-wage benefits (like job security, number of paid leave days, retirement benefits and health insurance) that are all significantly greater than what the average private-sector worker receives.

It is an uncontroversial fact that one of the defining features of a monopoly is its ability to obtain excess wages/profits, at the expense of social welfare.

This is true even when the monopoly in question is a labor union.

Thus, a willingness to strike despite receiving pay and benefits that are already significantly above market levels — even when that market is restricted to only other Bay Area governments — is an entirely predictable, and even rational action from the perspective of the monopoly union.

Absent a change to the state laws that grant government unions coercive, monopolistic powers, it is likely that Californians will continue to see their taxes raised in order to fund the demands of government unions.