The first to seize on the political potential of government workers was New York’s Mayor Robert F. Wagner. The Kennedy White House took notice of his success.
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But there was another “rights” movement, largely overlooked, that has also had a profound effect on American life. The looming public-pension crisis that threatens to bankrupt city, county and state governments had its origins in those same years when public employees, already protected by civil-service rules, gained the right to bargain collectively.