The laws of economics can be cruel, but not quite as much as union bosses. In Arizona, union officials backed a minimum-wage increase that applied to every employee in the state. What’s wrong with that? The disabled could be forced out of their jobs. One company has already furloughed its disabled employees. Now politicians are left scrambling to fix the glitch while the AFL-CIO does little to help.

Meet Rebekah Friend. She is currently the head of the state’s AFL-CIO and chaired the wage-increase ballot campaign. In December, and again in March, Friend said there was no need to create an exemption that would allow businesses to hire the disabled at a rate matching those individuals’ productivity. Friend even said “[i]t was intentional” to make the law apply to everyone.

So the AFL-CIO bosses got their way, leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces. With Friends like these …