[mgkimsal]

I've thought that too. The difference seems to be that in general, an entire workforce in a company is either 'union' or 'non-union'. In places I've worked in that had unions, you didn't have a choice as to whether you wanted to join or not - you want the job, you join the union. At the macro-level, perhaps 'the market' for labor has said "union", but the choice is not there for the individual to join or not.

I took at job in a grocery store where the union was on strike - the only reason I didn't have to join the union was because they were striking and I was working directly for the corporate HQ. Pay wasn't bad, though I suspect they were having to pay more to get us scabs to come in through the picket lines :)

I'd prefer union places where you could elect to join the union or not. If they actually lobbied for better conditions for union members, and got those, there'd be more incentive to join - you'd be making the union mgrs work for their jobs, essentially.

[georgefox]

The concept you're talking about is the so-called "right-to-work law" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law). The problem seems to be exactly what jiggy mentions: it's much cheaper not to join the union, and you still enjoy at least some of the benefits of the collective bargaining. The reality seems to be that right-to-work states have weaker unions, lower pay, and lousier benefits than non-right-to-work states. Whether this is directly related to right-to-work laws or not is not entirely clear, but there's no evidence to suggest that right-to-work actually makes unions stronger or better for their members.

In terms of "making the union managers work for their jobs," is that really a problem right now? I haven't often heard arguments suggesting unions are just collecting dues and doing nothing. Generally the only anti-union argument I've heard is that unions are too powerful and their members have overly generous compensation.

[rmc]

In places I've worked in that had unions, you didn't have a choice as to whether you wanted to join or not - you want the job, you join the union.

Huh. Those sort of closed shops are illegal in the European Union, and have been for years, your right to join a trade union must mean you have the right to not join a union. Needless to say, unions and socialists in EU were not so happy with that.

It's weird to think that part of the USA have more union friendly than the EU

[jiggy2011]

I guess the problem here is that from a purely selfish point of view it is better to not join the union (thus saving dues money) and let other people pay the union to negotiate on your behalf.

Perhaps it would be possible for an employer to offer separate union and non-union contracts with different pay rates (employers can already sort of do this by outsourcing) but the issue here is that not all union issues are about contracts.

For example , a union might negotiate for a factory to provide extra safety measures at the employers cost. All employees union or not would get the advantages provided by this unless the employer provided separate more dangerous machines for the non union workers to use.