That might be true sometimes, but it isn't the general rule. SAG is more akin to the way medical and legal organizations constrict supply. But most unions instead fix a structural problem.

One of the fundamental asymmetries of our corporate age is that employees have ~1 company, but companies have many employees. That gives a company enormous negotiating power: it's easier for them to find another employee than for you to find another job.

Unions act to restore balance so that companies and workers have more equal negotiating power. That doesn't come through supply restriction. E.g., in high school I worked for a grocery store and we were unionized. They could have fired all the stockers at once if they wanted, as it was not particularly hard to learn the job. But what they couldn't do was pressure me into taking less money by threatening to fire me.

The supply of physicians is primarily restricted by limits on federal government funding for residency slots in teaching hospitals. Every year there are students who graduate from medical school but are unable to practice medicine because they can't get matched to a residency program.

The supply of lawyers isn't restricted at all, as shown by stagnant or falling median wages. Almost anyone who wants to become a lawyer can enroll in one of the "third tier toilet" private law schools, and states don't impose any limits on the number of law school graduates allowed to take the Bar exam.

I'm surprised to hear the AMA has no influence over the size of residency funding, but if that's what you're saying, I'll take your word for it.

The supply of lawyers is restricted through onerous education and licensing requirements. You could argue that the fall in wages means they are no longer as effective in controlling supply. But if you think the supply "isn't restricted at all" I encourage you to start offering legal advice for money and let me know how that goes for you.

The AMA has been advocating for increased graduate medical education funding. I suppose they have some influence, but apparently not enough to convince Congress to boost funding enough to meet the demand.

I don't see anything particularly onerous about education and licensing requirements for lawyers. A sufficiently motivated student can complete law school and pass the Bar exam in a few years. So in practice there's no significant restriction on supply.

https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-con...

You really don't understand how multiple years of education plus a notoriously difficult exam count as a restriction on supply?

Again, if you think there are no restrictions, hang out your shingle and start giving legal advice. If you're right, you should be fine.

Things aren't as black and white. Unions, like every other manmade institution, seems to be rot when its getting big, old and fat.

German labour is heavily unionized, a lot of the workers are lazy and incompetent. A lot of the union leadership is well paid and almost never works. It heavily opposes remote work(for good reason, but with a slightly wrong conclusion).

Their salary negotiations have been a clusterf* in recent years. And in fact I tried them, and contributed. But attempts at protecting employee rights were not only shut down by leadership but also fellow union leadership. They were too busy cozying up to leadership instead of protecting and informing other employees of employee rights. When it comes to employer abuse they will be too "busy" to help you, so realistically you will still need your own private law insurance.

I'm not opposed to unions and I do agree that workers need better protection especially in the US. But we also ought to be able to talk about how these big institutions may no longer protect the interest of those people and at some point exist to feed their own mouths more than the workers they were intended to protect.

Is it better than nothing? Yes, absolutely. But why do man-made structure always end up like that?

I don't think I said things were black and white. I definitely agree that unions aren't perfect. But a lot of workers are lazy and incompetent regardless. People with power are problematic everywhere, too. I guess this is what we get when we try to run a planet and our main ingredient is half-evolved primates with a long history of trauma. At best, it's going to take us a long time to get things sorted out.

"Unions can only raise wages by constricting the supply of labor."

SAG doesn't make it's 'wage' because production companies are forced to hire from a smaller pool of SAG workers.

SAG sets prices.

There are actually an 'unlimited number' of SAG workers who would, if it were note for those numbers, also work for $0.

Also - unions don't set their wages by 'restricting labour' - they negotiate directly using the power of being able to shut down production. (Ok, arguably this is 'restricting the labour pool to current workers' but that would mean something different).

For Doctor and Nurses - you could argue that those guilds do actually restrict the number of workers in the field to keep prices up by supply & demand, but that's generally not what unions do.

> they negotiate directly using the power of being able to shut down production

This is true, but they would slowly lose their leverage if they didn't constrict the labor supply.

In order to join SAG you have meet certain requirements (e.g. speak a certain number of lines). The vast majority of actors in a union production have to SAG members, so this effectively acts as a rate limit to the number of new members.

The same goes for other powerful unions. Ford would love to build a new factory that employs non-union workers, but they aren't allowed to.