A large chunk of dues money for SEIU leaders comes from the paychecks of government employees — which means it’s actually the public paying those bills. Union officials are thus put in the position of holding up the public for greater and greater sums (precipitating, among other things, a vast entitlements crisis). Today’s episode comes from the Ventura County Star in California.

Currently the county and the union are about $15 million apart in their demands — with each percent increase in salary the union seeks costing the taxpayers an additional $3 million. County chief executive Johnny Johnston rightly says: “This is a zero-sum game … There isn’t any more money. To spend more in one area is to spend less in another.” Yet, the Star reports, “[u]nion officials say Johnston is painting too bleak a picture of the budget and could easily allocate a few million dollars more toward salaries.”

You might expect some “we’re all in this together” rhetoric, but the SEIU bunch out there is not even hiding their money grab. The paper reports:

Union members are unswayed. Tinker Kingman, a clerical supervisor in the Probation Department, said before the meeting that the county could find more money for SEIU salaries if the board makes it a priority.

“I don’t think it’s my job to figure out where the money comes from,” she said. “If they need the money for something like a new jail, it always comes out of the hat somehow.”