Yeah, I never understood how "free everything" advocates tend to be so much against the freedom of the individual to refer decisions/actions to a collective when that happens to be the better course of action.
“Free market” isn’t “free everything”. In a free market the bid-ask spread is king. It’s just another kind of tyranny, which, like all such things, benefits those who are set up to take advantage of it, and leaves most others in the dust.
Maybe your lack of understanding is because you're arguing against an imaginary straw man?
A group forming a collective and negotiating as such fits perfectly fine with free market ideals. This exists in many forms that all manner of libertarian, free-market, whatever label people are OK with.
When that group uses violence, threats and coercion to their benefit is where people object. Examples - blocking an employer from hiring non-union employees, harming or threatening to harm workers during a strike, forcing people to join a union to get/keep a job, preventing new workers or new firms from entering the market through regulation, etc.
If you want to say "You can hire these 20 union workers at a rate of $$$, we all stand together" that's fine. When you say "You need to hire these 20 union workers, and if you don't, we'll surround your business and threaten, harass and intimidate the people you hire instead" is where you've jumped into violence and extortion rather than free market negotiation.
Not exactly. We are against the way unions are implemented and make work not a free market. I'm not against your union so longs as I can decide not to join and still have equal work with you.
Your thinking is a fallacy, because a union uses the same principle that the republican party uses to maintain control: solidarity.
I'm curious why you would want to opt out of a union in the first place, since unions generally double workers' wages. I live in the right to work state of Idaho, which has some of the lowest wages in the country, especially for things like farm work. I realize that this is a bit of a straw man argument though, which doesn't touch your main point.
I'm having trouble thinking of a case where a union charges more in fees than it provides in additional wages, benefits and other protections. So I think my main point is that you are fixated on a motivation that doesn't exist. It's like being angry that you must pay for a stamp to mail something through the post office, even though that costs a fraction of what UPS or FedEx cost. You're free to work somewhere else or use those other services.
Maybe someone else can answer this better than I can. I really do want to understand why unions are so controversial, because I've only experienced the downside of not having them. Like when I was moving furniture 20 years ago and the warehouse charged $34/hr and only paid us $10/hr, even though we were doing all of the work. My feeling is that had we been unionized, we would have made at least $17/hr.
>My feeling is that had we been unionized, we would have made at least $17/hr
You can dismiss this as anecdotal if you wish, but I went from a non-union job to a union one, requiring much the same skills, and the latter pays less.
On a per hour basis, my current job pays 95% of the non-union position, but the main difference is 7.5 hours vs. 8 hours a day. That means my yearly salary is more like 87%.
On the plus side, you are guaranteed raises over time, which my former employer explicitly disclaimed, saying all pay raises were based on "merit". It's also nice that you know everybody at the same level is making the same amount.
I'm not going to generalize about all union jobs from my experience, but from a theoretical perspective, if a union offers security and better benefits then it's plausible people would be willing to give up a certain amount of pay.
One aspect of having a union that I hadn't considered was that in March, they had to have a lot of intensive negotiations about working from home, because the existing contract did not allow it.
>>On a per hour basis, my current job pays 95% of the non-union position, but the main difference is 7.5 hours vs. 8 hours a day. That means my yearly salary is more like 87%.
Over your career, doesnt getting raises matter more than immediately more money that will never increase? and without a union could be ended at anytime.
Over a 25 year career, assuming 3% raises, you make 30% more. Plus you worked 3125 hours less.
The way I interpret what you say is that you'd like to have the benefits of being in a union, without being in a union. If that's the case (otherwise, sorry for misrepresenting your views) I don't see how that can work. How are a bunch of independent individuals going to secure their common rights without collaborating with each other?
> Why must only the owners be allowed to unite for better outcomes?
Well, there's a reason the politico-economic system is called “capitalism” and not “laborism” or “socialism”, and it's not because it is structured for the benefit of labor or society as a whole. Such labor rights as have been established were a small but important step away from pure capitalism, and advocates of capitalism naturally want to peel them back.
A counterargument (that isn't necessarily convincing to me)
would be that a union of capitalists is called a cartel, and that is often regulated or opposed, considered illegal or illegitimate; thus a union is equivalent.
I believe there are also libertarians (small-L) who do believe in the above, but think cartels and unions should be unregulated.
I think people in this thread are confusing "free market idealists" (usually libertarians) with conservatives/Republicans. A free market idealist has no problem with a free labor market that self-organizes into unions as long as the government doesn't mandate unionization. Conservatives and Republicans tend to advocate for big business and have therefore a natural antipathy towards organized labor.
I would also presume that in addition a `free market idealist` would also want to ensure that Unions aren't given any special status, and that employers could also come together to agree wages.
The prisoner's dilemma is modeled with only two sides. A union might be better for average members, but it's strictly worse for non-members and employers and customers. Competition is a solution, not a problem to be avoided.
A union is, in an economic sense, a cartel. Their job is to restrict supply of labour so that the price they can demand for it increases, making their members more money. This is why it takes over a year to join the plumbers or electricians union in many states and why it takes over 10 years to join the longshoremens union.
I am against all cartels as a matter of principle, be they the ILWU or OPEC.
A corporation is a legal entity that provides some liability protection, and is not a cartel in any sense. Several corporation can collude to form a cartel, but a corporation in and of itself does not in any way meet the definition.
