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While union membership has collapsed in the private sector over the past 30 years (from 44% of the workforce to 15% in Britain and from 33% to 15% in America), it has remained buoyant in the public sector. In Britain over half the workers are unionised. In America the figure is now 36% (compared with just 11% in 1960). In much of continental Europe most civil servants belong to unions, albeit ones that straddle the private sector as well. And in public services union power is magnified not just by strikers’ ability to shut down monopolies that everyone needs without seeing their employer go bust, but also by their political clout over those employers.
Many Western centre-left parties are union-backed. Britain’s Labour Party gets 80% of its funding from public-sector unions (which also, in effect, chose its new leader). Spain’s sluggish state reform may be partly explained by its prime minister’s union membership. In America teachers alone accounted for a tenth of the delegates to the Democratic convention in 2008. And the unions are more savvy: this time, the defenders of vested interests are not brawny miners spouting Trotsky, but nice middle-class women, often hiding behind useful-sounding groups like the National Education Association (American teachers) or the British Medical Association.

A. 어휘
the private sector 민간부문. buoyant 浮力(부력)이 있는, 쾌활한.
the public sector 公共(공공)부문. unionise 勞組(노조)에 가입하다.
albeit 비록...하지만. straddle 두 다리를 벌리다, 양쪽에 걸치다.
magnify 확대하다. strikers 파업자. monopolies 독점기업.
bust-bust-bust 부수다. go bust 파산하다. clout 강한 영향력, 强打(강타).
centre-left parties 中道(중도) 좌파정당. funding 자금 조달.
sluggish 동작이 느린, 不振(부진)한, 나태한.
accounted for 책임을 지다. delegates 대의원.
the Democratic convention 민주당 전국 대회. savvy 약은, 경험 있고 박식한.
defenders 방어자, 옹호자, 피고인. vested interests 旣得(기득)의 이익, 기득권.
brawny 억센, 筋骨(근골)이 늠름한. miners 鑛夫(광부).
spout 滔滔(도도)히 말하다, 내뿜다. Trotsky 러시아의 공산혁명지도자.