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We have been conditioned in this country to substantially value investment over labor. Hence why business owners are called "job creators" while workers are referred to as "leeches", "parasites," etc.
You do not ask if people think unions are good or bad as that would be a different conversation with some +'s and plenty of -'s.
Instead you ask why free market fans hate them. The answer is simple and self evident. Unions artificially inflate wages a company pays, and reduces workloads. In a vacuum one might say the company is paying what the market could bear.
However in the real world and global economy, a company must compete with other businesses down the road, out of state, and around the world. If people in a foreign country do not have the same standard of living they do in the place where the company produces it's widgets, they are at a competitive disadvantage.
Now, that same company would not expect their employees to work for $40 a month, but they also cannot compete with having to pay their union workers $40 and hour.
Furthermore, unions will sometimes put a company under rather than make serious concessions to keep it in business.
One need look no further than Eastern Airlines to see how unions will cut off their nose to spite their face. A more recent example is Penn Tennis. They were the last company to make tennis balls in America, and I supported them as a result. Yet when they pointed out to the employees they could not remain competitive with Wilson, Dunlop, etc. unless their employees took a modest pay cut, it fell on deaf ears. Now of course Penn manufactures their balls overseas, and the former employees are out of a job.
So it is pretty easy to see why "free market" people do not care for unions.
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While unions do indeed inflate the cost of labor, the nature of an organized corporate management deflates the cost of labor. Thus, there is an imbalance of power between the individual employee and the corporation. If the worker doesn't like the corporation's pay offer, the worker has no ability to negotiate. The union equalizes the power between an unified corporation and the workers.
What we learned from history is that without labor being organized, the company will exploit the workers. Those were the conditions that were the catalyst of the early labor movement.
We have been conditioned in this country to substantially value investment over labor. Hence why business owners are called "job creators" while workers are referred to as "leeches", "parasites," etc.
President Eisenhower said: "Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America."
President Eisenhower said: "Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America."
The GOP successfully turned non-union workers against union ones, in both the public and private sector. The non-union workers were oblivious to the gains that had happened in this country due to the organized labor movement. We saw that play out first hand here in Wisconsin with Act 10 (which accomplished nothing positive, but made the right wingers feel good about themselves).
Nowadays, union membership makes up only about 10 percent of the work force, so the labor movement is now almost completely marginalized.
Why shouldn't workers have the right to band together and protect their interests? How does that violate any principle of economic freedom?
Let's start with the word "right."
They have the right to do it, in the same sense that they have the right to have a tuna sandwich for lunch. It's when the government steps in and places ridiculous constraints on the employer that I have a problem with it. Being in a union doesn't put you into a protected class, like being black or female does, but they're treated basically the same. It's wrong, and it's that government intervention that interferes with "economic freedom".
Second, unions have accomplished pretty much everything they set out to do. There are very few industries or even individual businesses where unions are needed these days. The unions have done great, and now that they've done what they set out to do, it's time for them to pat themselves on the back for a job well done and go away. There's nothing left to fight for, except justification for their existence, and they do that by extorting unreasonable things from employers. Sky high wages, impossible to fund pensions and exorbitantly expensive insurance policies are just a few of the ways that they waste an employer's money, or to use your term, "violate their economic freedom."
Unions were created to force businesses, to their demands.
What happened is, legislators caught on to the yells from the workers that wanted to create a union and passes laws that they knew their constituents fully supported concerning labor.
Now all the laws are in place for worker rights and safety, through government legislation and laws.
We no longer need unions. They just bully businesses to demands that stockholders never accept. Unions have bankrupted many industries in the nation.
They have the right to do it, in the same sense that they have the right to have a tuna sandwich for lunch. It's when the government steps in and places ridiculous constraints on the employer that I have a problem with it. Being in a union doesn't put you into a protected class, like being black or female does, but they're treated basically the same. It's wrong, and it's that government intervention that interferes with "economic freedom".
Second, unions have accomplished pretty much everything they set out to do. There are very few industries or even individual businesses where unions are needed these days. The unions have done great, and now that they've done what they set out to do, it's time for them to pat themselves on the back for a job well done and go away. There's nothing left to fight for, except justification for their existence, and they do that by extorting unreasonable things from employers. Sky high wages, impossible to fund pensions and exorbitantly expensive insurance policies are just a few of the ways that they waste an employer's money, or to use your term, "violate their economic freedom."
Taking your second point first, why aren't "unions needed these days?" Have employers become more enlightened or altruistic? Have they suddenly started to care about their worker's well being instead of their shareholders? We have current real-life examples of corporations raiding the worker's pension systems. Bain Capital is a prime example of how corporations don't care about employees.
Unions are indeed still needed to prevent the slide back (which has already happened.)
In your first paragraph you refer to "the government steps in and places ridiculous constraints on the employer." What specific constraints can you name?
Unions were created to force businesses, to their demands.
What happened is, legislators caught on to the yells from the workers that wanted to create a union and passes laws that they knew their constituents fully supported concerning labor.
Now all the laws are in place for worker rights and safety, through government legislation and laws.
We no longer need unions. They just bully businesses to demands that stockholders never accept.
Unions have bankrupted many industries in the nation.
Those laws that unions helped pass include child labor laws, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and occupational safety legislation. Requiring that your workers shouldn't be subjected to dangerous chemicals is hardly an unacceptable constraints on business. Without vigilant unions we can see how business lobbyists will water down legislation.
What we find is that when unions were strong, wages tracked productivity gains. Since the decline of unions, wages remain stagnant regardless of productivity gains, which flow to the owner class.
Unions are still needed.
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