Unionizing America
Jeremy has a serious question, actually:
Nice look! I need to make my blog simpler without sacrificing the aesthetic.
Thanks. It’s temp but I’m always a big fan of simple designs. Just don’t think I have the meat in my content to really justify it.
My question is: what’s your opinion on the Employee Free Choice Act?
I am opposed to it. I understand where there is concern in terms of coercion on the part of a business to keep unions out, but I think trading that coercion for one from Union goons who are not just looking out for themselves but the good of paid Union leaders is not a viable option in ensuring proper rights for the worker.
I think that what you’re seeing among Unions is the same crisis being faced by, say, print news media. They have failed to adapt with the times while the public and market have. The purpose of unions was to help negotiate and ensure a fair work environment for employees. But over time that has come to be the norm as a combination of fear of unions and free market movements have led to the need for businesses to provide a proper environment for their employees.
But unions can’t handle this. Instead they demand the right to force themselves into work environments that do not ultimately need them.
For example, let’s look at Ukrops. Say what you will about Ukrops, from all accounts I have heard on the inside they treat their employees right. And they are a non-union shop. Yet when the came to Fredericksburg the unions came out in force, screaming their heads off that Ukrops was bad for workers and bad for Fredericksburg. Yet they offered comparable wages to the local Giant which was a union shop. It offered better goods. It offered better service.
Guess what? It was a better store. And treated their employees damn well to boot.
So, instead of patting themselves on the back for a job well done through the years and adapting their tactics and agenda to turn into a lobbying arm for ALL Americans, whether or not they pay dues and sign on for union activities or vote a certain way, they turn to the government to force their agenda and their presence down the throat of hard working Americans who already have the option to unionize if they want it.
It’s short sighted, it’s reactionary, it’s dangerous at a time of economic turmoil, and it does nothing but subsidize bad decisions on the part of the Unions and reward their failure to adapt to the market.
This is part of the Ask J~ Stuff segment done some Wednesdays. Have a question? Go ask it here.
As a libertarian, I have a somewhat different take.
What specifically do you oppose about the EFCA, though? A lot of what you’re saying in your opposition to unions is *already* the case, with the EFCA not changing it at all.
All the EFCA does is give a second method for workers to organize a NLRB-recognized union without employer consent (this is card check). Note that card check is already a path forward with employer consent; this is only changing that element.
I agree with you that many modern unions have lost their way. That is no reason to prevent workers from forming new unions, though. I’d prefer a free market, where the government does not intervene in labor negotiations. But given that it DOES, it should not tilt the balance of power in the direction of employers.
Some unionists do this (just as some employers lobby for government favors on their end). But this isn’t a reason to oppose unionism per se, anymore than it’s a reason to oppose employers per se. I *do* think it’s a perfect reason to oppose government per se, but that’s not the issue here.
Watch the end credits of a movie once and see what great effect unions have on the cost of a product.
Look at a government budget and realize the largest unions are government employee unions, and see what great effect unions have on the cost of the product.