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Public-sector unions will find it hard to win these battles. They have not been particularly successful in mobilising public anger, considering the scale of the cutbacks. Nor have they notched up any notable victories: the Greek and Irish governments have implemented their austerity packages and Nicolas Sarkozy has raised the retirement age. They are also discovering that many people in the private sector regard their public-sector colleagues as an overprivileged elite. Spanish civil servants were shocked at how little support they got when, last June, they protested against a 5% cut in pay. And a recent poll showed that 65% of people in stick-in-the-mud Greece want civil servants to lose their job security.
The pressure to rationalise the public sector is likely to continue in coming years. The debt level in OECD countries is expected to rise to 120% of GDP by 2014, thanks to a combination of ageing populations and inherited obligations, some of them driven by the public sector’s insatiable appetite for pensions. Joshua Rauh, of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, reckons that seven American states will have exhausted their pension assets by 2020.
It would be a mistake to write off the public-sector unions. They are masters of diverting attention from strategic to tactical questions. Undoubtedly the unions will lose some of their privileges over the coming years the scale of the debt crisis makes this inevitable. But will governments have the courage to tackle the root causes of the problem (such as pensions) rather than dealing with secondary problems (such as wages)? And will they dare to tackle questions of power rather than just pay and perks? If they are to claim victory in the coming fight, they need not just to restore the public finances to health. They also need to breathe the spirit of innovation into Leviathan.

A. 어휘
mobilize 동원하다. notched up 득점하다, 획득하다.
notable 주목할만 한, 두드러진. implement 履行(이행)하다, 충족하다.
overprivileged 과도하게 특권이 많은.
stick-in-the-mud 舊弊(구폐)의, 굼뜬, 고루한. rationalise 합리화하다.
inherited 물려받은. obligations 의무, 債務(채무).
insatiable 만족을 모르는, 탐욕스러운. appetite 慾求(욕구), 식욕.
exhausted 消盡(소진)하다. pension assets 연금자산.
write off 죽은 것으로 간주하다, 실패한 것으로 간주하다.
divert 전환하다. strategic 전략적인. tactical 전술적인.
tackle 대결하다. perks 特典(특전), 寸志(촌지), 임시수입.
restore 회복하다, 복구하다. Leviathan 거대한 海獸(해수).