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by vkou 3030 days ago
Almost! They do two things.

1. Make it illegal to have an exclusivity contract.

2. Make every concession that a union gets out of their employer apply to non-union employees. [1]

This would be like Dole getting a special deal with Whole Foods... And a "Right-to-sell" law would mandate that the terms of that agreement would also apply to me - even though I was not a party to those negotiations.

> I was under the impression that a majority of the workers of a company can unionise and then require every other worker in the company to join the union.

That would be the case in a truly free market, if the employer entered into an agreement with the union that going forward, it would only employ union people. The employer's not compelled to do that - it does so by choice.

> If you are correct then I can see why right to work laws are not so good. However, keep in mind that there are many laws preventing people from entering certain contracts. Such as laws forbidding a person to work at a company if the company doesn't want to pay minimum wage, or offering to give someone some money but requiring that they pay back a large amount in a set amount of time.

I agree. You have rights, some of which you can't sign away - for instance, it would be illegal to discriminate against someone based on race, despite the existence of a contract to the contrary. Contracts aren't entirely absolute, and this gets complicated quickly. There's also questions of monopolies, which libertarians generally do not oppose, but other people do.

[1] The obvious consequence is that the game-theory optimal strategy for everyone is to not join a union.

1 comments

That you for taking the time to explain. If true I can see why RtW laws are criticised. Can you link to a source about point 2?
That would be the Exclusive Representation rule.

https://www.flra.gov/exclusive_representation

http://www.hr.ucdavis.edu/elr/lr/collective-bargaining/ee_re...

The tl;dr of it is that if 50% + 1 of a workforce unionizes, the union bargains collectively for everyone. Even for free-loaders who don't pay union dues.

This is like being able to opt out of paying taxes, while still receiving all government benefits. If that were legal, then our public services would collapse by next week.

Thank you for the information. I don't understand legalese that well (many colloquial things mean something different in legalese) so I will take your word for it. That changes my view on RtW