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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 , yes, but unions have free market competition. (With the exception of public unions, different animal). A company can chose to not negotiate or hire a union, or can chose to have the union be the labor supplier. The company choses to sign contracts, or not. This is no difference than anyone who supplies iron ore, or oranges to a super market, or day care providers. The union supplies a service, labor. If the company doesn't like that supplier, they can hire others. This isn't often a good choice for the employer, (see Boeing and their issues moving production to North Carolina), but it is their choice to make.
Unions are a sign of a true free market economy, and I anticipate most of the objections brought up in this conversation, will be when the state screws the free market up. "right to work" laws, for example. Taft Hartley. Joe Biden screwing railway workers last year.
@JonKramer By that logic you should throw away anti-trust laws for the same reason.
Company coalitions and price-fixing would have competition with other coalitions. I can choose to buy from one coalition or another. I as a worker can choose to take their 1$/hr offer or not and always go somewhere else. The coalition provides a service, the means of production, if the buyer doesnt like it they can pay a different company, etc etc...
Sadly that doesnt work in reality because coalitions, like unions, can grow to encompass a whole geographic region and therefore eliminate any real competition.
Unions, like coalitions, are a sign of an unregulated market.. not a sign of a free market, these are different things. The market has been hijacked and the free market pressures have been price-fixed in both cases.