It appears that Saturday Night Live let their token conservative writer run wild last weekend producing this almost-too-real-to-be-funny sketch about government unions. If anything the clip is too harsh on government union employees, but the government unions themselves are already sapping our economic recovery.

Just last January the Labor Department confirmed what Heritage fellow James Sherk predicted last year: under President Barack Obama, 2009 was the first time in the history of the United States that the number of government union employees outnumbered private sector union employees.

There are two reasons for this: 1) Unions kill private sector jobs, and unionized companies earn profits 15% lower than those of comparable non-union firms. This makes unionized firms less competitive, which is why unionized manufacturing jobs fell 75% between 1977 and 2008, while non-union manufacturing INCREASED 6% over that same time. 2) Government union jobs face no competition. Public sector unionization has exploded in the past decade and President Obama’s $862 billion stimulus was specifically designed to preserve government union jobs.

This is why while total private sector compensation grew by just 1.2% in 2009, total compensation paid to state and local government employees grew 2.4%.

So if you want to know what happened to your raise last year, go ask Anthony Scalise down at the Mercer County New Jersey probate court … that is if he isn’t already on break.