Government unions are, as I said, problematical, because they're not subject to market feedback because the employer is not subject to it either.
Government unions are problematical because they can't bargain for wages and benefits or anything else meaningful so they occupy themselves mucking around in second and third tier stuff in an effort to make themselves seem important and generally make nuisances of themselves rather than contributions.
When hell freezes over.
When I said that decertification was rare I meant that eschewing a union was rare. Yes, I know that unions are sometimes decertified, but that's almost always to replace them with a different ones. Sorry for the imprecision of my language.
Well I can't really say anything to that, can I? I think what that means is, "You're wrong. So there!"
No, what it means is the same as my previous point. I was focused on a unionized company going unionless. Switching unions is just more of the same. Again, sorry for the confusion.
Civil societies have organized interest groups and among them will be unions.
It seems as though I'm giving you the impression that I'm opposed to employee interest groups but that's not the case. I very much favor them. I think it important that employees be free to negotiate with management over whatever they consider important. They should be able to do so individually or to form committees to represent them regarding issues with management. It's in the best interest of both management and labor to work out issues to their mutual satisfaction.
Unions are a very special form of organized interest group because they have a large body of specialized law and a large formal infrastructure--their own little legal system--that controls how the labor-management process operates. Ordinary interest groups like AARP or the NAACP don't have their own bodies of law and their own systems. The union system makes "the union" a powerful entity in and of itself, that is, the union has its own set of rights independent of the employees it represents. So when we introduce a union, we introduce a third party to the relationship between labor and management, one with its own agenda and it's own claims. My argument is that it's preferable to work out labor-management issues with two interested parties in the room rather than three. My gripe about unions is simply that the interests of the union compete with those of the two principals--labor and management and that that is not a Good Thing.
Let me offer a simple analogy. Two people who are in love and want to share their lives can get married or they can just set up housekeeping. If they get married, they have a third party to the relationship, the body of law surrounding marriage, a body of law which offers privileges and constraints. They can choose to include that third party in their relationship or they can work out arrangements informally or formally between the two of them. It may turn out that the third party makes no difference in their arrangements, or maybe it helps them, or maybe it gets in the way of how they want to operate as a couple. In any event, the third party is an entity that must be given its due whether it suits the couple or not.
Now, the marriage entity is a relatively friendly and light-handed third party compared to the union entity. The union entity is the proverbial elephant in the living room. I just don't know why anyone in this day and age would choose to invite the elephant to join the party.
What you haven't taken up, and it's extremely important, is the effect of lack of market constraints on government and its unions. The greater world of business and unions is basically self limiting, but government and government unions are not
I would be happy to take it up if I understood your point. I don't see how either is self-limiting. My whole complaint is that the union has become an entity with it's own set of rights and it will fight for them to the death, trampling both employees and the company in the process if need be. |
