Governor Donald Carcieri has been locked in another dispute with unionized state employees. The latest skirmish involved his effort to shut down state government to close a budget gap. Carcieri has blasted union leaders for resisting his plan, accusing them of maintaining what he calls "their stranglehold on the citizens of this state." WRNI political analyst Scott MacKay says this war of words needs a bit of context.

It is time again for the chorus of Republicans, talk radio shouters, a few business leaders and Governor Carcieri to trot out one of the biggest myths in Rhode Island politics: That labor unions control the state, especially the State House.

There was a time when that slogan contained a kernel of truth, but that was in 1969, not 2009. Facts are stubborn things. What they show is that for most of the past 25 years -- especially in recent years -- Rhode Island labor unions have been on the ropes.

Union membership, particularly in the private sector, is at an all-time low. In Rhode Island, where more than a third of workers were unionized in the middle of the twentieth century, less than 20 percent carry union cards today.

Since 1985, organized labor has given concessions and lost political battles more often than not. Our state was one of two in the nation that allowed strikers to receive unemployment benefits. That ended when Republican Edward DiPrete won the governorship in 1984 and the Assembly went along with the business community's campaign to end strikers benefits. The argument was that Rhode Island was a no-go zone for business. Those opposed to such benefits claimed repeal would open the flood gates for companies to move here in droves. But that never happened.

In the 1990s, the business community and Republicans got behind four year terms for governors. Union leaders campaigned to keep the terms at two years. But again they lost and backers of the four-year terms won. Every governor election since has been held in off-presidential election cycles, when voter turnout is lower. The result: No labor-endorsed governor or Democrat has been elected to the governorship since Bruce Sundlun in 1992.

The Assembly once had 100 House members and 50 senators. Republicans and the business community led an effort to cut the size of the legislature, asserting that would attract more competition for the seats and provide more balance in a Democratic-dominated system. Organized labor opposed downsizing, but once again, the business community prevailed and the Assembly was downsized. Ditto with the so-called Separation of Powers constitutional changes enacted -- over labor's objections -- several years ago.

For years, the business community has hammered away at public employee pension benefits. The first concessions came in the 1996 budget, when employee and teacher pension contributions were raised by a percentage point. Since 2005, pension benefits for those workers have been cut twice, while the cost of their health insurance has gone up. And just this week we have seen unionized state employees make more economic concessions.

One of Governor Carcieri's major policy initiatives was to cut taxes for the wealthy. The governor said this would lead to business expansion in the state.  Now, we have one of the nation's highest unemployment rates, so obviously that hasn't happened. This is in sharp contrast to the governorship of Lincoln Almond, when the Providence Place Mall was built, and Fidelity Investments and F.M. Global expanded in the state. State income taxes were higher then than they are now.

Carcieri is quick to refer to unions as special interests, as if they were any different from businesses seeking State House favors. In recent years, the whiff of State House corruption has come from private businesses -- a major health insurer and a major pharmacy chain --cozying up to legislators.

There are more crooked labor leaders on HBO these days than in the AFL_CIO.

It is true that union-backed Democrats control the General Assembly. But whose fault is that? Labor works hard to recruit candidates for office and supports them in elections, the bedrock of a representative democracy. The business community apparently does neither. The fault for the lopsided one-party legislature lies with Republicans who can't recruit good candidates and a citizenry apparently too apathetic to care much about happens on Smith Hill. That is a shame, but not an occurrence for which unions should shoulder the blame.

Scott MacKay's essays can be heard every Monday morning on Morning Edition at 6:35 and 8:35.