Quote:
Originally Posted by ellemint
Your argument is upside-down.
Unions have the effect of improving benefits and increasing wages, for everyone, not just union members, whether within an industry, within a geographic region, or for an entire nation.
Not having unions is one of the reasons the American worker has worse benefits and lower wages than in many other developed nations of the world.
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Wrong, because you are looking at the information incorrectly. You are obsessing with wages, rather than looking at buying power, or availability of goods and services.
Look at it like this. Lets pretend there were 100 workers in various fields, all producing goods and services for production. But each of these 100 workers was compensated in varying amounts. And the amount of compensation of each individual affected his ability to purchase the goods and services produced by all of the 100 workers.
Imagine the total amount of goods and services as a one-hundred piece pie. And each person would get a certain size piece of that pie.
Now in order to grow the size of the pie, some or all of the 100 workers have to either work longer hours or be more efficient at his job.
Now, lets make sure we understand something very quickly. Wages have absolutely nothing to do with buying power. Whether or not we are making $10 an hour, $100 an hour, $1 an hour, or 10 cents an hour, doesn't matter. All that matters is how much you can purchase with your wages. And how much you can purchase with your wages is related to the availability of goods and services. Or, supply and demand.
Now, in order for Unions to benefit the country economically. They would have to accomplish one of two goals. Either they would need to be more productive, thus producing a larger pie. Or they would have to ensure that the pie is split up in a more equitable manner. And please don't even discuss "benefits", because benefits are really just a form of compensation. Those benefits can only come from the provision of goods and services by the workers.
Now the question is, are unions more productive/more efficient than non-union workers? I would be surprised if anyone thinks a union worker, works harder, or longer, or better, than a non-union worker. Thus, unions do not increase the size of the overall pie.
So do unions make sure there is a more equitable share of the pie going to all 100 workers? Or more importantly, what would the pie look like in the presence and absence of the unions?
Well, it is certainly true that unions get a larger piece of the pie, because of their ability to demand higher wages. But we must keep in mind, if the unions aren't growing the pie to offset their increased ability to consume it, then they must necessarily be taking part of the pie away from others. Now the question is, whose piece of the pie are the unions taking away?
The unions would like you to believe that their larger share of the pie comes at the expense of the rich. And that they either don't touch the piece of the pie of the poor at all, or that they somehow even take from the rich to not only grow their own piece of the pie, but also grow the piece of the pie of the poor as well.
Now the question is, whose piece of the pie are they taking away?
Well, lets pretend for a moment there were no unions. How would that affect the rich and the poor? Well, its unlikely that in the presence of competitive capitalism that the rich would be any richer than they already are. And really, in the absence of "corporatism", and "crony capitalism", where favored businesses get preferential treatment, subsidies, credits, contracts, etc, you should actually see a decline in the relative gap between the very rich and everyone else.
On the other hand, in the absence of unions, the current union workers would probably lose a considerable amount of their current pay. And in their eyes, they will be considerably worse off. And they are basically correct. But, regardless of if they lose pay, their productivity should be unaffected, or even increase. And thus, their piece of the pie will be smaller, but other people will necessarily have a larger piece of the pie. And if the rich are unlikely to get larger pieces of the pie. That necessarily means the poor will have to have larger pieces of the pie.
Which really make sense if you consider that many union and non-union workers do exactly the same job, and the only difference is compensation. My friend originally worked as a machinist making about $25k a year. Now he works for the government doing the same job, makes about $60k a year. And he actually works less hours, and has a less demanding job. I think it is pretty clear that union workers benefit at the expense of non-union workers, especially the working poor. It really cannot be any other way.
Of course like I said. As an individual looking for employment. Of course I want a union job. Because a union job means I get a larger piece of the economic pie. And its also understandable that others working in the same fields would also want to demand larger pieces of the pie for themselves as well. The problem is that, their larger piece of the pie almost always comes from someone else. And only those who are politically or economically organized can demand higher wages. Basically, large organizations(especially corporations) have enough political power to guarantee themselves special benefits. While small businesses or small organizations don't have the power or influence to get these perks. And because of the higher wages of union shops, their companies tend to be less competitive. Thus is the reason why unions tend to be against things like free trade. They want economic controls, they want tariffs, they want regulations, and they want subsidies, to guarantee themselves the continued benefits they currently have.
The problem is that, unions are in essence the foundation of crony capitalism. They are the cause of corporatism. They are all about special favors for favored businesses. They help to create and perpetuate the abuse, corruption, and waste in the government. The unions themselves have actually become a sort of greedy corporation, which compensates itself for well. And must constantly legitimize its existence by constantly demanding more and more and more. Even when there is increasingly less to take(IE recession).
And whats worse is that, most of the unions wouldn't even exist in the absence of the government protecting them. The laws enable the unions to require workers be part of the union just to have a job. Government has consistently come in on the side of unions, refusing for instance to remove or arrest workers in their "sit down" protests, to prevent "scabs" from replacing them. If the government no longer protected the unions. Almost every union in this country would practically disappear overnight. With "scabs" replacing those spoiled union brats.
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