I have always been a big supporter of #unions but lately I have been second-guessing that and debating with myself if I might actually change my views to be against unions....

My thinking is simple.. I am a huge supporter of anti-trust laws. Essentially I dont think companies should be allowed to create coalitions with the intention of price-fixing the market. This makes sense to me, companies **must** compete or else they can become too powerful.

If i believe in that logic then I should, by similar logic, be against unions. Unions are effectively large groups of people getting together to carry out price-fixing of their labour.

@freemo Unions is to give the workers a fair treatment, isn't it? To stop companies from acting like assholes to their workers.

Price-fixing labour sounds not as bad as price-fixing the market. After all, what is minimum wage if not price-fixing too? Or did you want to get rid of that as well?

@trinsec Everyone wants more, everyone thinks they arent treated fair. Companies think they pay too much for employees and may just as well view themselves as the one not getting fair treatment.

The anti-trust laws on companies is specifically there to ensure fair market value (no price fixing), so thats already how they get fair treatment.

I am also against minimum wage, it has caused enormous harm to the poor.

@freemo How does minimum wage cause harm to the poor?

@trinsec Because minimum wage is well known to cause unemployment shifts towards the poor... Higher minimum wage means hiring shifts so that fewer poor/low-educated people are hired and more higher-education people are hired. Minimum wage effectively increases unemployment amongst the group of people that you are trying to help (the poor) doing more harm than good.

@freemo @trinsec No, this is poor reasoning.

Setting a minimum wage fixes the problem that people cannot live on that wage. The fact that it introduces another problem doesn't negate the good done.

The next step is to address the problem of displaced, under-educated workers.

@rmerriam

It literally has no effect other than to cause all the people who are making less than a minimum wage and barely able to feed themselves into people who now have no job at all and are in a much worse position, starving, meanwhile more educated/skilled people have replaced their job, people who would have made a living wage regardless.

No it doesnt fix a problem.. it makes a problem much much worse and fixes nothing.

@trinsec

@rmerriam @trinsec

"Solving" the fact that people dont have a living wage by making it illegal for them to have their less-than-living-wage job and essentially firing them leaving them with less than they had before.. is NOT solving anything.

@freemo @trinsec

Yes, it does, as I stated.

I don't think you are serious in this discussion. Just stirring the pot.

@rmerriam @trinsec

I am entierly serious, and not stirring a pot.

If you think taking away what little money someone makes because it "isnt enough" is somehow solving a problem then I hate to tell you but it sounds like your the one who isnt serious here.

You dont solve the problem of people making a less than living wage by taking away what money they make. That should be obvious.