[CryptoPunk]

Corporations as generally conceived are not anti-market interventions. A union backed by the state imposing a rule that violates an employer's contracting rights by 1. preventing them from negotiating with workers outside of the union, 2. preventing them from firing workers who unionize or strike and replacing them with new workers, is.

These are blatant anti-market interventions that give any group of workers that unionize an effective state-backed monopoly over their employer's labor force.

The conspiratorial narratives about opposition to such state-backed monopolies being nothing more than Big Business trying to mislead and exploit the little guy, and such monopolies being in the public interest, is nothing more than economic quackery, on par with anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories about vaccination being a harmful practice that is only widely promoted because of the nefarious influence of Big Pharma.

The economic reality is that these rules create rent-seeking and reduce economic efficiency. They will destroy Amazon's dynamism.

Giving a select group of workers a temporary wage boost at the expense of the industry that sustains them is the same short-sighted policy implemented in the post-war era, which saw workers see large wage gains, and then saw the industries that employed them suffer massive bankruptcies and contractions.

[mirimir]

It's true that the legality of unions in the US depends on an exception in antitrust law. But it's also true that corporations depend on state-backed exceptions to common law. As such, corporations were generally illegal in the US until the late 1800s.

There was an exception for corporations serving the public interest. Initially for building canals and railroads. But in the late 1800s, a series of Supreme Court opinions removed those limitations. Eventually, they got some protection under the 1st, 5th and 14th Amendments. And recently, wider protection under the 1st Amendment.

As long as we're going to allow collective action by business owners, it's only fair that we allow collective action by workers.

[zaroth]

Any form of business larger than a sole proprietorship is a collective action.

The “corporate” form of a business (as supposed to a partnership or other structure) is mostly a matter of taxes, legal liability, and the manner of raising capital and distributing profits.

Powerful unions are typically larger than the workforce of any one single company.

[mirimir]

Right. Sole proprietorships and individual workers have similar market power. But without unions, workers have virtually no market power vs corporations (and partnerships, for that matter).

I do agree that both corporations and unions ought to be regulated by antitrust law.

[CryptoPunk]

Market power is irrevelant to workers being able to fetch the market rate for their labor. Corporations compete with each other for a limited pool of labor. There is no generalized class conflict between corporations and workers in a free market. Competition happens just as much within classes as between them.

Ultimately that results in the wages offered being determined by the underlying market forces of supply and demand that are far larger and more powerful than the efforts of any single party. And it is in society's best interest for wages to be determined by supply and demand and not some social agenda.

The only policy which provide zero sum benefits to corporations at the expense of workers is immigration. And that can be addressed by workers through political coordination. The primary purpose of unions is to give select groups of workers the ability to engage in rent-seeking at the expense of the wider economy. We can get political coordination between workers without resorting to unions and all the harm that comes along with them.

[Supermancho]

> Market power is irrevelant to workers being able to fetch the market rate for their labor.

If the market consists of few actors, you get collusion to depress wages and opportunity (in tech you had https://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage...) but it exists across a number of industries. Your assertion assumes only good actors, which is not commensurate with reality.

[CryptoPunk]

Collusion of this type has a very minor impact on market rates. The example you cite is tech companies coming to an agreement to not cold call each other's employees to head hunt them. And wages in Silicon Valley have exploded over the last couple of decades so obviously there are much larger forces at play in setting wages than these collusions.

This sort of collusion can also be addressed in a much more targeted way than creating laws that give workers who unionize control over major hiring decisions of their employer.

[mirimir]

I'm certainly no expert, but it's my impression that workers for large corporations generally get screwed when unions are weak. Based on data from the past several decades.

[CryptoPunk]

Unions were very weak in the late 19th century, because the only tools at their disposal were extra-judicial violence, which was met with state retaliation. During that period, when contracting rights were at their strongest, workers saw wages grow at the fastest rate in US history.

Unions in the private sector became much weaker over the last 40 years, but that was not due to the labor laws that empower unions being eased. It was due to the type of industries that unions are prone to form in (e.g. labor-intensive, high volume manufacturing) contracting in the US.

The laws that empower unions make the US inhospitable to key industries.

What's going to happen to the US electric car manufacturing industry if Tesla's workers unionize?

What's going to happen to Amazon's business units if they see massive unionization?

The consequences for a US-based operation when their work force unionizes is a major disincentive for investing in production in the US, and a major impediment to existing US-centred companies from expanding.

[CryptoPunk]

Unions depend not just on an exemption from anti-trust law, which in itsef is an anti-market intervention, but on state-imposed restrictions on businesses to give unions a monopoly over their workforces.

It's an extreme disruption in the economy, with all predictable consequences for productivity.

As for corporations and common law, that's a relatively minor deviation from the free market that would be almost entirely ameliorated by removing limited liability from tort cases.

>>As long as we're going to allow collective action by business owners, it's only fair that we allow collective action by workers.

Collective action is not the problem. Laws prohibiting employers from exercising their right to contract liberty and free association, to fire workers who unionize or strike, or to negotiate with workers not in a union, when a union has voted to collectively bargain, are the problem.

Like I said, the state gives unions a monopoly over any workforce in which they form. Giving a party a monopoly by restricting the contract rights of other parties is entirely different than "allowing" a monopoly to exist.

[Supermancho]

> state-imposed restrictions on businesses to give unions a monopoly over their workforces

That's not how all unions work. That is how the worst ones are implemented in the US, imo. eg govt unions, teacher's union, police union, NRLCA vs UFCW or Airline unions (eg https://www.swamedia.com/pages/contracts)

[CryptoPunk]

That's how laws relating to unions and collective bargaining and striking work. You cannot negotiate with other parties once the majority of your employees in a work unit vote to collectively bargain. That means the union gets a monopoly over who you can negotiate with.

Similarly, you cannot fire and replace unionized workers who strike, which again means the union is controlling your company and determining who you can employ.