Because its true. Unions can only increase wages by reducing the amount of workers. Unions dont get wage increases by reducing the profits of capital in the long term.
If uber drivers unionized and made uber pay them more, then less capital would go to uber and eventually have less workers. Ultimately the return on capital will end up being the same, because capital looks for returns and will move. So in effect, it would only increase wages of drivers as long as it can prevent other drivers from showing up.
For anyone at home that wants to listen to someone that knows more about economy than any of us:
Literally everything you said is FUD and a maliciously deliberate misrepresentation of the purpose of unions.
Unions exist to collectively bargain on behalf of workers in markets in which individual workers do not have sufficient bargaining power to achieve the same results. They remain in power in those markets precisely due to their continuing ability to achieve better-than-free-market rates for their members, as evidenced by the death/diminishment of unions in many fields where they are not able to maintain above-market compensation for their members.
> They remain in power in those markets precisely due to their continuing ability to achieve better-than-free-market rates for their members, as evidenced by the death/diminishment of unions in many fields where they are not able to maintain above-market compensation for their members.
They remain in power in those markets due to their legally-granted right to remain in power in perpetuity without periodic recertification or reauthorization elections.
That's not an opinion; that's legal fact, just like saying that the President of the United States is in power because the law grants him that right until January 2021. Unlike government, where politicans have to run for re-election every N years, once a union forms, there is no legal obligation to hold an election to keep them in power. (The process for petitioning for a decertification election is incredibly difficult, and unions are actually granted a great deal of leeway by the law in taking action to prevent these elections from happening. Furthermore, even in cases where they do happen, and the majority votes to decertify the union, the election results may be overturned by the NLRB.)
All in all, if you want to argue the case that unions successfully bargain for better results on behalf of workers, you can't really rely on the fact that they remain in power, because that's already the default - it takes an extraordinary degree of opposition to remove them.
I see that there is quite a bit of history and passion in what appears to be an old flame war, so excuse me if I'm asking the obvious.
Americans seems to favour "free market" at almost any cost, but you mention that Unions are not free market (for labor) yet they provide better results. So why the "free market" passion?
Would you make the same argument for companies that have monopolies? They achieve above free-market profits, so why the "free market" passion?
If you think of labor as a commodity, unions are simply a monopoly of labor. Everyone wants a monopoly of what they sell, and freedom of what they buy, this is no different.
I would be very hard pressed to find a good union case that didnt provoke some sort of restriction on other workes, either by wage fixing, protectionism or supply limiting.
The very link I posted tells that the union power comes from above free narket rates. I agree 100%. And it does so bu restricting supply. Unions have an arsenal of tools to achieve that.
> Unions can only increase wages by reducing the amount of workers. Unions dont get wage increases by reducing the profits of capital in the long term.
Why do you think that it's mathematically impossible for a company to find the money some other way? Any profitable company by definition makes more money than it spends, so it's clearly possible for such a company to pay its workers more without having to reduce costs (i.e. hire fewer workers) or go into debt.
>Why do you think that it's mathematically impossible for a company to find the money some other way?
Depends on the industry. If there's a lot of foreign competition and workers aren't mindful of the health of the industry, they can easily kill it off. That's what happened to steel production in the US.
>That's what happened to steel production in the US.
*Some of the steel production in the US. I am certainly not making the argument that the steel industry in the US is as large or vibrant as the 70s or 80s. However, USX still does have several plants open and is doing fairly well. In my slightly knowledgeable opinion, this is because there is such a high up front cost of building a plant (especially a continuous pour caster).
The industry also made a very large shift from producing new steel to recycling scrap to produce slabs. Virgin steel is much harder to work with and produce than its recycled counterpart. This lowers the barrier to entry, increasing competition.
After this shift, I don't think there is any way that the U.S would have been able to compete with Chinese steel regardless of unions. Even if you removed all of the union CBA stuff and just left U.S compensation laws and OSHA, I highly doubt the margins are there to compete in regards to recycled steel.
You're not wrong; if a foreign country can deliver a similar product without respecting worker's rights, it'll screw with the people working at normal income / safety standards. I guess that's one reason why import taxes are a thing, to protect the national workforce - hasn't worked I guess. I wonder if Trump and his cabinet have plans to increase import taxes.
If I were king for a day I'd institute an across-the-board import tariff of 5% or so. Enough to keep domestic suppliers from gouging consumers, but also enough to tilt the playing field a bit in the direction of domestic manufacturing. It would hurt growth a bit, in the long run, but I think it's worth the cost.
Globalization increases equality between countries, but it also increases inequality within countries. There are places where unskilled labor pays a couple dollars a day. Doesn't matter what the safety standards are - there isn't anywhere in the US you can survive on that kind of money.
If a company makes less money than others, it will stop investing investingn in itself and divert funds to more profitable ventures. The rate of profit will regulate the amount of capital. The amoubt of capital will regulate the amount of workers.
You cant reduce a compnies profits and think that will increase employment.
Google stock would plummet because people will sell to buy apple that is not following the same policy. So as soon as google does that, the stock dip will lower wages within and hire less.
Google is currently handing out giant sacks with dollar signs on them to machine learning people far exceeding the meager means of most other companies, and the stock price is rising.
By your logic, shouldn't they be in the crapper for over-compensating these folks compared to what the market value?
A lot of people holding stock right now are probably doing so specifically in hope of tax law changes giving the companies more money, which will be used to buy back stock from shareholders.
(oops, I mean to make capital investments in the company and raise wages for average employees -- since a company in possession of a good fortune must be in want of workers to give raises to!)
Lower stock means the company has less capital to invest in its own ventures, and less capital is less employment within the company. This is true even if no employee got stock whatsoever.
Nope they can argue for a greater share of the profits of the company or better pension rights. Back when I was a union branch secretary I helped get several thousand people get a better deal from the BT pension scheme.
TL;DR unions: a collective that can put pressure on businesses. Treat employees better, or they go on strike, see how the business can operate then. This will work for airlines, because if only half the pilots go on strike they'll have huge problems.
Doesn't work for Uber, because if half the drivers go on strike, pay will go up for the other half and more people are likely to work for Uber because the bar for entry is so low. Also no, uber would just raise prices. I'm fairly sure it was unions that made it difficult for just anyone to become a taxi driver though - protecting their own income, limiting competition etc.
I don't see how that relates to the point you were making. Clarify?
> Bitcoin as a currency is fairly useless unless you're buying drugs or you're a botnet operator
You claim that Bitcoin is useless. This was to justify the point you made before (nothing will settle in Bitcoin) or maybe as a cheap dig. Either way, your statement as it stands is worded to be condescending and confusing.
It's like saying "Mouthwash is fairly useless unless you don't want bad breath." Turns out, the market for people who don't want bad breath is pretty big. Calling it useless is wrong.
What I'm getting at is that Bitcoin is essentially being traded as a security, where it's basically just how much electricity mining pools have wasted. Despite being designed as a currency, it sees very little use as such and mostly just gets moved around between people trying to get rich.
>your statement as it stands is worded to be condescending
That is intentional. I find Bitcoin is stupid and wasteful by design.
[1] http://www.bankableinsight.com/ways-unions-hurt-the-economy....
[2] http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/17/unions-harmful-wor...