An excellent opinion piece in The Sacramento Bee Saturday powerfully defends state workers. Co-authored by the chairman of the Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley, the column points out that contrary to being "bloated" with state workers, California ranks 48th in proportion of public to private employees. The authors make the case that state workers' compensation is lower on average than compensation for similar jobs in the private sector and retirements are not high and reminds readers that financial institutions -- not state workers -- brought down the economy."Cutting public services," the article reads, "... will only deepen unemployment and prolong the downturn."