[hekfu]

> Labor unions depend on laws that inhibit the contract freedom of employers for the above-market wages they fetch their members.

> They're rent-seeking organizations where the benefits concentrate to their members, while their costs diffuse widely across the general population.

> For these reasons, I suspect being a part of a union is a significantly larger source of bias than not being part of one, and that's roughly what Public Choice Theory on special interests would predict.

Imagine this: the labourers instead form a company, each holding a number of shares, taking what you call market wages for whatever they are doing. They create a new position inside this company, let's call it union ltd., to negotiate a contract between the university and union ltd. Union for the services the members provide. Any surplus the union negotiates is distributed via dividends on the shares.

Is this now differen to what you describe? Or different to any outsourcing company? Unions are nothing more, nothing less than a negotiation,i.e. business tactic, just like we use outsourcing as a business tactic

[CryptoPunk]

You're deeply mistaken. Unions would be immediately fired if they were operating in a free market. Their power depends entirely on laws that restrict the contracting freedom of the employer.

For instance, the law prohibits an employer from firing workers for unionizing, or firing unionized workers for striking.

It forces employers to engage in collective bargaining when a union forms and demands it. This mandate to collectively bargain includes a prohibition on the employer negotiating individually with employees that would prefer individual negotiations.

It is due to these laws that union members get above market wages.

[eesmith]

Going back to my original comment, I think it's clear that if the TAs felt like you do, then there would be a clear bias towards anti-unionism at Harvard, and we would have to distrust their ability to be impartial.

As regards your followup, you are only looking at 1/2 of the picture.

Yes, there are restrictions on what an employer can do, eg, prohibitions against firing a worker for unionizing.

On the other hand, since the Taft-Hartley Act, unions are prohibited from "jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns." (Quoting Wikipedia.)

The idea is to remove so-called "unfair labor practices" from both the employer and the union. So you can't just point to the restrictions on employers and stop there.

Your statement "Unions would be immediately fired if they were operating in a free market." is contrary to the historical evidence.

We know that unions exist in a free market and with no laws to support them because history gives clear examples. It wasn't until Commonwealth v. Hunt in 1842 that unions in the US were determined to be legal in the first place. Previously people who tried to use their collective bargaining power were sometimes prosecuted for criminal conspiracy.

Under your free market hypothesis, how did these early unions exist without laws to back them up?

It's because collective bargaining can be effective even without legal enforcement. Quoting from the Wikipedia page on Commonwealth v. Hunt: '"Wait, Horne’s master, testified that "he did not feel at liberty to employ any but society men," because he "would not wish to lose five or six good workmen for the sake of one."' No law force him to accept the union.

Your last line is "It is due to these laws that union members get above market wages."

That's neither here nor there. We are far from a free market, in regards to employment, and we don't know what the free market rate would be if both employers and unions were unconstrained in what they could do.

Moreover, people in unions may accept lower rates than those not in a union. Some people would rather have the stability of a long-term job that is not affected by one's ability to kiss up to the boss, and accept the trade-off of having a lower salary for that stability.

We also know that companies engage in collusion to lower salaries. See the settlement a few years ago where Apple, Google and several other Silicon Valley companies allegedly "illegally conspired to prevent their workers from getting better job offers." (Quoting https://phys.org/news/2015-09-415m-settlement-apple-google-w... )

If you really believe in a free market, then it seems you think that group of employers should be able to work together collectively to lower employee wages, yes? If employers can act collectively, then why shouldn't employees act collectively?

[CryptoPunk]

>>Going back to my original comment, I think it's clear that if the TAs felt like you do, then there would be a clear bias towards anti-unionism at Harvard, and we would have to distrust their ability to be impartial.

I don't understand what you mean. How do I feel?

>>The idea is to remove so-called "unfair labor practices" from both the employer and the union. So you can't just point to the restrictions on employers and stop there.

The laws overwhelmingly benefit unions. If there were a free market, employers would be much better off.

>>We know that unions exist in a free market and with no laws to support them because history gives clear examples.

That wasn't a free market either. The threat of violence and property damage was what compelled companies to negotiate.

And it was only with the passing of laws restricting employers' right to contract and violating their private property rights that unionization rates began to become substantial, and unions began gaining major benefits for their members.

>>Moreover, people in unions may accept lower rates than those not in a union. Some people would rather have the stability of a long-term job that is not affected by one's ability to kiss up to the boss, and accept the trade-off of having a lower salary for that stability.

We can quantify the market value of job security as well. It has a cost for the employer after all.

The point is that unions result in their members getting benefits/salary that has above-market value.

>>We also know that companies engage in collusion to lower salaries. See the settlement a few years ago where Apple, Google and several other Silicon Valley companies allegedly "illegally conspired to prevent their workers from getting better job offers."

It's pretty rare, and even that case was not an ironclad agreement preventing all competition between these firms for workers.

Moreover there are other solutions to this kind of collusion than laws that effectively rob all employers of their property, by creating rules that usurp their control over it for the benefit of unions.

>>If employers can act collectively, then why shouldn't employees act collectively?

They should do anything that advances their interests, including acting collectively, except when it involves advocating for laws and other coercive measures that violate other people's right to freely contract.

If their unions can survive in a free market without such laws, and without utilizing extra-judicial threats of violence, they have every reason to use them.

[eesmith]

It's clear that you are anti-union.

Under your earlier guidelines, if you were a TA at a business course in Harvard, I would not be able to trust that you would give an impartial treatment of labor rights.

"The threat of violence and property damage was what compelled companies to negotiate."

It's like you didn't even read the Wikipedia page for Commonwealth v. Hunt.

In that court case - the one which established the legal right for unions in the US - where was the threat of violence and property damage?

Based on my reading of the MA Supreme Court judgement, there wasn't any. If there had been, the decision would have gone the other way.

The collective bargaining power in that came from the ability of the workers to leave Wait’s shop, and by exercising their freedom of employment, incur economic hardship on the Wait.

Perhaps I am wrong, and you can point to how the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker’s Society threatened violence and property damage.

But if you cannot, then your understanding of labor relations is invalid, which should make you question about how you came to those beliefs.

Or perhaps you'll argue that your ability to sign a non-union contract with a company means that those who have a union contract with the company are prohibited from freely leaving their employment?

Because I can't make sense of why I can be forced to work for a company when I want to leave it, just because you want to work there.

[CryptoPunk]

>>It's clear that you are anti-union.

I don't think being pro or anti-union is the issue. I think being pro or anti-union due to ideological biases or a personal financial conflict of interest is the issue.

That's what the TAs unionizing could result in.

If one has a normative stance on unions that is derived from impartial analysis, that seems fine to me.

>>It's like you didn't even read the Wikipedia page for Commonwealth v. Hunt.

I was not talking about that case. I was talking about your earlier point about unions existing before labor laws gave them legal privileges, which you claimed proves unions can survive in a free market.

My point was that historically, in the pre-labor-law era, all of the leverage that unions had seems to have come from the threat of violence toward replacement workers, and company property, which intimidated employers into negotiations.

Are you familiar with how strikes were conducted in the 19th century?

Are you familiar with the blockades, violently enforced picket lines, etc?

[eesmith]

As I wrote, ideological biases which result in the TAs not unionizing are also a possible. No matter which way you view it, it's possible to cast suspicion on their presumed impartiality.

Thus, I don't see your original comment as adding anything other than FUD.

You wrote "I was not talking about that case". However, here's the chain:

You: "Unions would be immediately fired if they were operating in a free market. Their power depends entirely on laws that restrict the contracting freedom of the employer."

Me: "We know that unions exist in a free market and with no laws to support them because history gives clear examples." I specifically pointed to the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker’s Society in Commonwealth v. Hunt as my example.

You: "I was not talking about that case"

Except you were. You made a claim that was for all unions, including craft unions.

Now you're backing away from your claim when you realized it's indefensible.

You make that claim again with your statement "all of the leverage that unions had seems to have come from the threat of violence toward replacement workers, and company property, which intimidated employers into negotiations."

Again, I point to Commonwealth v. Hunt as a counter-example to your claim. Their power comes from the collective agreement to quit en mass. The Supreme Court of MA found no conspiracy to threaten replacement workers or destroy company problem.

Since what you claim is clearly wrong, why do you repeat it?

Yes, certainly I know the basics of how strikes were conducted in the 19th century. But strikes aren't the only way to exercise collective bargaining ... as shown in Commonwealth v. Hunt where no evidence was presented to show the boot makers were even planning to strike.

Yes, I know about blockades, violently enforced picket lines, etc.

Yes, I also know about the Pinkerton Agency goon squads that the business owners employed, which among other things lead to the Anti-Pinkerton Act. And the "un-American" paternalism which was partially to blame for the Pullman Strike. And the deadly strike-breaking actions of Baldwin–Felts, leading to the Ludlow Massacre.

This is why I stressed that you were looking at only 1/2 of the picture when you focused on government prohibitions of what an employer could do, and not also government prohibitions on what the unions could do.

As MLK said, "a riot is the language of the unheard". Collective bargaining is a way to be heard.