The Democratic governors elected by Democratic unions grant elaborate public-employee pensions to reward their labor union campaign contributors. Since public-employee pensions do not have to be paid until the future, the Democratic governors elected by Democratic unions get to pay the patronage with a future budget for which future governors will be responsible.

"This game is in its last gasp," Corsi wrote. "Why? Because states can no longer afford the generous public employee pensions awarded in more prosperous times, when political patronage through collective bargaining could be afforded."

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership is continuing to decline.

In 1983, the first year for which union membership rate data are available, the union membership rate declined from 20.1 percent of all workers (17.7 million union workers) to 12.3 percent of all workers in 2010 (14.7 million workers).

The following are highlights of the BLS 2010 data:

• The union membership rate for public sector workers, 36.2 percent, was substantially higher than the rate for private sector workers, 6.9 percent.

• Workers in education, training and library occupations had the highest unionization rate, 37.1 percent.

• Black workers were more likely to be union members at 13.4 percent, than were white at 11.7 percent, Asian at 10.9 percent, or Hispanic workers at 10.0 percent.

• Among states, New York had the highest union membership rate, 24.2 percent, and North Carolina had the lowest rate, 3.2 percent.

The largest numbers of union members live in California (2.4 million) and New York (2 million).

About half of all union members live in six states: California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey.

For more information on the death of the labor movement and the state pension crisis, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."

Red Alert's author, who received a doctorate from Harvard in political science in 1972, is the author of the No. 1 New York Times best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and (with co-author John E. O'Neill) "Unfit for Command." He is also the author of several other books, including "America for Sale," "The Late Great U.S.A." and "Why Israel Can't Wait." In addition to serving as a senior staff reporter for WorldNetDaily, Corsi is a senior managing director in the financial-services group at Gilford Securities.

Disclosure: Gilford Securities, founded in 1979, is a full-service boutique investment firm headquartered in New York City providing an array of financial services to institutional and retail clients, from investment banking and equity research to retirement planning and wealth-management services. The views, opinions, positions or strategies expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect Gilford Securities Incorporated's views, opinions, positions or strategies. Gilford Securities Incorporated makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability or validity of any information expressed herein and will not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this information or any losses, injuries or damages arising from its display or use.