> I’m strongly anti-union. While they increase the average wage, they limit the top wages of those who are not average or below.

How would you rate the abilties and compensation of union members Lebron James and Keanu Reeves?

Lebron James would be an even larger billionaire. Also, he loves money so much he is afraid to speak out for the little guys being crushed in China lest he lose a few million.

Your theory is that unions are holding back wages of elite professional athletes and movie stars?

I don’t know why you’re expressing such incredulity at the idea:

https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/even-though-lebron-james-make...

Yes. The NBA collective bargaining agreement puts a max salary on players. In a free market LeBron would have made far more during his career, and the average player less.

This is exactly a case of increasing the median salary at the expense of top performers.

And isn’t that a good thing overall? Like isn’t that an outcome we generally want as a society?

> The NBA collective bargaining agreement puts a max salary on players

If you check the recorded history you'll find that the NBA salary cap was there since the very first year of the league, and predates the union by several years: https://www.apbr.org/labor.html

The team salary cap and the individual max salary are different things.

The nba players union is definitely holding back the salary of Lebron. He'd be making 70%+ of the salary cap without max contracts that the union forced.

I am stronly pro unions as in Sweden, and they are not like the US unions. Around 70% of people in Sweden are members of unions for $15/month.

Sweden Tesla worker salary is 4k/month, with full health insurance, free kindergarten, free school, free college. In case they get ill, workers get 2 years of 80% salary, and rehabilitation.

While you have at will contrracts in the US, unions in Sweden have ensured 3 months notice. Unions also negotiate minumum annual raise and gives you annual raise at least equal to inflation.

Unemployment insurance is handled by unions, you must be a member - 1 year of 80% salary and additional year. If needed, new training is obtained for free.

Without a union agreement, Musk workers are slaves.

No serious brand operates without unions.

Is Keanu Reeves a member of his union entirely of his own volition, or because he was coerced to by other members of his industry?

I have no problem with unions so long as they are voluntary. Only if a union is voluntary can you make any fair comparisons to prove their value.

> Is Keanu Reeves a member of his union entirely of his own volition, or because he was coerced to by other members of his industry?

IIRC, you can't have more than a few lines in a movie without being union.

Sounds like a bunch of thugs. Gross.

I’m not anti-union but I am warily of unions getting too powerful.

You cannot assume that unions will always do the “right thing”.

A lot of unions encompass the entire labor force of a sector effectively becoming monopolies on labor. Those aren’t healthy for the economy as there is nothing stopping them from abusing their monopoly position.

Frankly, corporations at least have antitrust laws to check them. Are there laws checking the power and abuse of power of unions?

Of course there are laws regulating unions. What kind of question is this?

Example? I heard of antitrust laws for corporations - and all the “Acts” that codify them.

What are the union equivalents? What aren’t unions allowed to do? Are there cases where unions have been sued by governments for breaking these laws?

In the US at least strategic industries are banned from striking. This happened to the railroad workers last year where the government passed a law that would take away their pensions if they striked. Reagan famously fired every ATC worker when they went on strike. There are many other laws too, in my state public unions can't strike over wages. Of course they just say they're striking about iother things and negotiate wages anyway but it does effect their messaging.