> The best argument against unions is thay they violate contract liberty, and thereby inhibit market freedom and increase economic rent seeking.
Freedom of contract is about state interference. Worker's unions are compatible with free markets as much as corporate groups or large companies are. You can't make a logical argument rejecting only one of them.
> any industry in the US that came to be dominated by unions became uncompetitive: the auto industry, US Steel, and the passenger rail service
Except that a lot of the competition from other countries that supposedly leapfrogged them has famously strong unions. So much in fact they're usually used as examples for them. How do you reconcile that?
Also the US car industry isn't even that bad off and neither is steel.
Saying that your argument is limping would be sugar-coating it. If that was truly - as you say - the "best" argument against unions, then... oh well.
The thing I don’t understand about your argument is that you say that giving “monopolistic control over the negotiating power of a company's work force will be economically harmful”. But companies already have monopolistic (well, monopsonistic) control over their workforce. So why is this an acceptable status quo?
I think do unions in right to work states are excellent, though.
I can't believe you're saying that with a straight face, talking about Jeff Bezzos' company, after covid and 2020.
Alabama is a right-to-work state, so how is a union inhibiting contract liberty? You legally cannot be forced in Alabama to pay union dues if you don't want to be part of a union.
Of course, an industry might decide not to work with people who are outside of the union, but an industry might also choose not to hire anyone who refuses to sign arbitration and/or anticompete agreements, and I'd wager you probably think those contracts are the results of free choices from all players.
So by the same logic, a voluntary union in a right-to-work state is the result of voluntary contracts and decisions made by people who vote to join the union and by businesses that freely decide to work with that union in order to access that workforce. You might not like the outcome of those negotiations, but a group of people deciding to collectively accept or reject a contract is contract liberty. Of course they should have the freedom to make that decision.
I understand some of the union objections in states where employees can be forced to join and/or pay dues against their will, but people act like collective bargaining is fundamentally anti-freedom, and I just don't understand that point of view at all. What is a collective bargaining agreement other than another contract that people have the freedom to sign?
> Tesla is doing great, and its workforce is not unionized.
By what definition? There have been multiple articles and accounts describing Tesla's factories as awful places to work, and its management tried to pressure its workers to ignore COVID restrictions.
Sure, if the only thing you're optimizing for is profit, then any attempt to increase employee bargaining power is going to be a problem, because all of them will reduce profit. But Tesla seems to be largely failing the "is this what we want a modern factory/workplace to look like" test.
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Edit, addressing your points:
> We're talking about the strength of industry here. By that standard, Tesla is doing great.
That's a very vague definition -- I wouldn't say that Tesla is producing wildly better cars than everyone else on the market. They're certainly very profitable, but if you're only thinking about profit marging and stock price, then you're going to end up opposing literally anything that improves worker conditions in any way.
> The Biden administration is planning to get rid of right to work:
And your solution to that is to oppose people's rights to collectively bargain? Again, I understand some of the objections you might have around union regulations, but you're still not arguing for free contracts if you're throwing the concept out entirely. I mean, arguably even right-to-work laws themselves are anti-free-contract, I know Libertarians who hold that view because those contracts bar what contracts an employer can sign with a union.
If you have objections about federal laws, fine, but that's not the problem of the current workers who want to collectively bargain with Amazon. They shouldn't have to give up their collective bargaining rights just because you have an issue with the federal regulations, they still at a fundamental level have the right to unionize.
Take it up with Biden, don't complain about the workers.
1. Strength of industry is pretty commonly understood by its profitability. And profitability and worker conditions are positively correlated, so they are in no way opposing each other. The profitability of Tesla and the export revenue being brought into the US by Tesla's market success means more spending by Tesla on US-based operations which applies upward pressure on US wages. This is Economics 101.
2. If people are choosing their cars over other cars, that means they are producing better cars. Consumer choice is the only objective measure of quality we have.
3. Tesla is driving the entire car industry forward, by encouraging other auto makers to embrace electric cars, and also self-driving features, while expanding the recharging infrastructure needed for widespread use of electric vehicles.
>>And your solution to that is to oppose people's rights to collectively bargain?
If by "right to collectively bargain", you mean having laws that force companies to collectively bargain with unions, yes. Companies should be free to decide who to negotiate with, and free to reject requests to collectively bargain. The laws, as they are, are problematic.
Such rent as sick leave, holidays, weekends, basic health insurance (US), ...? That rent?
>>The US auto industry is still very union-based, and beyond the occasional bailout, seems to be doing well.
The US auto industry is now protected by trade barriers so the bleed has stopped, but it saw a massive drop in market share since the early 1960s:
https://detroitwillrise.weebly.com/uploads/1/8/2/1/18213209/...
Tesla is doing great, and its workforce is not unionized.
>>You say that "those working for the media are all unionized" but I have no idea what you're talking about. Citation?
Look at the New York Times:
https://www.nyguild.org/about-the-new-york-times
Or the Washington Post:
https://postguild.org/
Or any other major news organization.
>Unionization does not cure bad management, it merely makes sure that the employees are treated fairly, regardless of the quality of management.
It reduces managerial discretion. It makes it so that the labor market is not free. It makes unionized workers into a privileged set of insiders who do not compete on an level playing field with other workers. It also reduces the range of options available to investors/entrepreneurs, in inhibiting their contract liberty. Reducing optionality in voluntary interaction is going to be an economic net negative.
>>Remember: the reason people have jobs is to feed their families, not to support the company.
The reason people invest in companies, or buy from a company, is to personally profit, not to provide people with jobs. Once you force the private sector to act like a charity, you are introducing top-down control and limiting the free market that is so effective at coordinating large numbers of people to better meet their collective needs.
responding to below:
chmod775:
>>Worker's unions are compatible with free markets as much as corporate groups or large companies are.
Yes, that is true. I meant under the current laws, where a union can force their employer to negotiate exclusively with them. This is mandated collective bargaining, as opposed to mutually voluntary collective bargaining.
>>Except that a most of the competition that leapfrogged them has famously strong unions.
Besides the unionized German auto sector, I don't know what you're referring to. Some of my examples, like the US passenger rail service which went bankrupt soon after the unions took over, or the public sector, had/have no foreign competition.
With respect to Germany, it should be noted that Germany's wage/GDP growth has been quite stagnant since the 1970s as well. Its auto industry has been successful, but that can be attributed to numerous other factors, like its effective education system, its engineering culture, and government policy focused on promoting auto manufacturing, all of which can counter-act the negative effects of its unions.
Also it should be noted that the relationship between unions and employers in Germany is more cooperative that in the US.
jakelazaroff:
>>Unions increase the negotiating power of those selling their labor. That’s not forcing the private sector to act like a charity, it’s just giving workers more leverage.
They increase that negotiating power by preventing the employer from negotiating with the larger labor pool. It is a zero sum gain that enables unionized workers to extract economic rent.
danShumway:
>>Alabama is a right-to-work state, so how is a union inhibiting contract liberty? You legally cannot be forced in Alabama to pay union dues if you don't want to be part of a union.
Federal labor laws, that force employers to collectively bargain if a union demands it, still apply in Alabama. But yes, right to work has gone some way in restoring contract liberty, and has been a lifeline for the US auto industry, and US manufacturing in general.
The Biden administration is planning to get rid of right to work:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickgleason/2020/10/21/biden...
> Tesla is doing great, and its workforce is not unionized.
>>By what definition? There have been multiple articles and accounts describing Tesla's factories as awful places to work, and its management tried to pressure its workers to ignore COVID restrictions.
We're talking about the strength of industry here. By that standard, Tesla is doing great.
As for labor conditions, the massive export revenue that Tesla is bringing into the US will help US workers overall. I recommend looking at the big picture. There's no sense mandating that all jobs provide great working conditions if it leads to stagnation of US industry, and a lack of profitable employers that pay high wages.
monsiousbanana:
>>I can't believe you're saying that with a straight face, talking about Jeff Bezzos' company, after covid and 2020.
I don't know if you realize how much Amazon helped people during the lockdowns.. Cost-effective and timely home delivery of consumer goods was an absolute lifesaver, literally.
Amazon is also a massive employer. Without all those jobs that Amazon's export revenue creates in the US, the US worker would be much worse off.
olliej:
>>Such rent as sick leave, holidays, weekends, basic health insurance (US), ...? That rent?
The benefits that employers provide should be based on market demand, not mandated by cookie cutter rules. What if an employee prefers higher wages over health insurance? Cookie cutter mandatory benefits prevent that arrangement. They prevent optimal trade-offs, that would be found if benefits were the product of mutually voluntary interaction, from being found.
It's not economically sound policy. An economy is far far too complex and fast-evolving to regiment in this top-down way.