As I noted last week, Tax Foundation puts the state in 39th place in its ranking of states according to their business climates. Pretty bad.

But there is one horrendous blunder NC has avoided — allowing the unionization of government workers. In this new Cato paper the authors show that states permitting the unionization of government workers create a strong and powerful constituency for continuing government expansion.

Under the cover of what remains of federalism, the states are still free to tell unions “We just won’t deal with you.” (Federal law has taken that freedom away from the owners of businesses, unfortunately.) North Carolina is one of the few states that has avoided the fiscal blunder of allowing state employers to unionize, but Big Labor is trying to use its political muscle to change that.