Labor Unions: Pro or Con?

[Michael]

Labor Unions: Pro or Con?

I'll take the 'con' side... :D

1. Unions are anti-liberty and abuse the principle of 'free association'.

From my liberty minded perspective, government is a necessary evil. I would further add that democratic government is the only legitimate form of government. As such, if my government is democratic, my surrender to the will of the majority is legitimate. This is certainly anti-liberty, but it is also a necessity that I accept as a human being and citizen.

Unions also operate on the principle of demanding a surrender to the will of the majority. This is also anti-liberty. However, it is not a necessity and thus enforcement of any will of that majority would be illegitimate.

I'd like to point out that free association is also a sacred principle of liberty. There ought to be nothing that prevents anyone from joining in association to represent their interests at any time. However, there is no reason to justify turning the principle of 'free association' upside down to force a 'requirement of association' upon anyone for anything - but this is exactly what unionism requires in order to function.

2. Unions are artificial (political) and function only with legislative support and government enforcement.

Unions only function because they have statutory legal existence. Without statutory legal recognition of the union, a strike/picket line is nothing more than an occupation by squatters.

3. Unions entrench and institutionalizes an 'us vs them' dichotomy between management and employees.

While there may be some tension or occasion conflict of interests between the owners and the employees of enterprises, with a diverse market of enterprises, there is likely to be quite a bit of variety in the manner of managing such relations.

Unionism seeks to limit such varieties and impose uniformity of terms and conditions. Unionism seeks to enforce a monopoly upon the relationship between employer and employee when civil suit may be the most appropriate manner for the redress of civil grievances in the terms of employment.

For these reasons, I object to the legislated authority of unions and unionism. The principles of free association, the civil law courts and the free market are sufficient to provide redress and/or alternative opportunities for suitable employment. Unionism is an unjustified limitation upon liberty.

* * *

Anyone care to take up the 'pro' side... :erm:

[Non Sequitur]

ok I will, but be gentle with me...

Pro's

1. Liberty without equality results in oppression

While Liberty is an admirable goal, liberty without some semblance of equality results in oppression by the minority. While societies naturally form aristocracies of some sort, a society that solely focuses on liberty will exaggerate the stratification of society. Liberty naturally allows some citizens to prosper more than others (as Alexis de Tocqueville noted). With prosperity often comes power and those with power will always use all available means to keep said power. So while liberty is a good goal for Western society, we must also add in equality to make sure the minority does not control the majority. Unions provide a valuable service in restraining the minority and keeping a balance between those with power and those without. Liberty does not exist in a vacuum.

2. Almost everything is an artificial construct

Short of God, creation, and perhaps an eschatological view of the church all things are artificial. The Corporation is just as much an artificial construct as the union is. In fact, the corporation is even more of a construct considering it is consistently given the rights of an actual human being. Governments, nations, and all institutions function under artificially created premises. The actions undertaken by a union derive from the rights that we as a society have agreed upon (most notably the right to the pursuit of happiness)

3. Wealth is the goal

While management styles may very, but the all consuming goal of profit is a constant. Wealth corrupts and "is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). To argue that management will willingly take a hit to profit just because it is proper to give people a fair wage fails to take into account human nature.

Furthermore, one cannot rely on the courts, legislative bodies, or government executives to protect the rights of the worker. History has consistently shown that these bodies are often the easiest to corrupt with the wealth of the minority. Given this reality, it is the right (and duty toward democracy) of the people to safeguard their own livelihood by whatever means necessary. Unions happen to be the most peaceful means.

Now i am going to make sure I am not struck by lightning...

.

[Donkey]

Not a necessity according to whom? The intrinsic philosophy behind organized labor is sound. In a free market society, (and forgive me if I throw out a few economic terms, I'm not trying to lend weight to my argument by using them, they are just convenient) the owner of resources and capital is an absolute dictator. The laborer is entirely dependent on the benevolence of that dictator, which is almost guaranteed to be sparse at best. That is the laborer as an individual. Like any dictatorship, however, the dictator is dependent on laborer as a whole, in this case for production.

I'm starting to sound like a college student who just discovered communism, and that's annoying, but whatever.

Anyway, the purpose, and justification, for a labor union is collective bargaining. You can call that brute force, but it is reactionary. It does not exist in a vacuum. A Union's demands can be too much, at times, but the circumstancial overstepping of bounds is not an indictment of the process.

I reject the idea that unionism is to blame for creating the dichotomy between management and labor: the abuse of the worker because of the cut-throat profit model necessitated by the "free" market is responsible. The union is a reaction to that.

As for official governmental acknowledgement of organized labor, well I see that not only as important but as positive. Governments, by and large, engage in consistent corporate sycophancy. I don't see it as a bad thing that they get up off their knees every now and again throw the other side a bone.

And when the government doesn't back unions? This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre) happens.

[partofme]

Not a necessity according to whom? The intrinsic philosophy behind organized labor is sound. In a free market society, (and forgive me if I throw out a few economic terms, I'm not trying to lend weight to my argument by using them, they are just convenient) the owner of resources and capital is an absolute dictator. The laborer is entirely dependent on the benevolence of that dictator, which is almost guaranteed to be sparse at best. That is the laborer as an individual. Like any dictatorship, however, the dictator is dependent on laborer as a whole, in this case for production.

I'm starting to sound like a college student who just discovered communism, and that's annoying, but whatever.

Anyway, the purpose, and justification, for a labor union is collective bargaining. You can call that brute force, but it is reactionary. It does not exist in a vacuum. A Union's demands can be too much, at times, but the circumstancial overstepping of bounds is not an indictment of the process.

I reject the idea that unionism is to blame for creating the dichotomy between management and labor: the abuse of the worker because of the cut-throat profit model necessitated by the "free" market is responsible. The union is a reaction to that.

As for official governmental acknowledgement of organized labor, well I see that not only as important but as positive. Governments, by and large, engage in consistent corporate sycophancy. I don't see it as a bad thing that they get up off their knees every now and again throw the other side a bone.

And when the government doesn't back unions? This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre) happens.

I have mixed feelings about unions. I don't like the idea of it being mandatory to join one but on the other hand I don't see how they could be effective otherwise. Working conditions in this country have a terrible past and I wonder if things could possibly have improved without the existence of unions.

[Donkey]

I have mixed feelings about unions. I don't like the idea of it being mandatory to join one but on the other hand I don't see how they could be effective otherwise. Working conditions in this country have a terrible past and I wonder if things could possibly have improved without the existence of unions.
Unions wouldn't be necessary if there were effective government regulation of industry.*



*whew, hope this makes me sound less like a "revolutionary." ;)

[Michael]

Unions wouldn't be necessary if there were effective government regulation of industry.*



*whew, hope this makes me sound less like a "revolutionary." ;)
I'll comment more indepth later on, but for now, it appears as if you are admitting that unions are political and are justified because they serve to counter the politics of corporations.

That may be true, but that's a mighty thin reed for claiming that unions are "inherently good".

This also suggests that unions are a substitute for political party.

[Donkey]

I'll comment more indepth later on, but for now, it appears as if you are admitting that unions are political and are justified because they serve to counter the politics of corporations.

That may be true, but that's a mighty thin reed for claiming that unions are "inherently good".

This also suggests that unions are a substitute for political party.
Well "inherently good" and "not inherently bad" are not at all the same thing. I would say that Union's political role, and corporation's political role are both unfortunate, but if there is going to be corporate politics, there should be union politics as well.

However, that role is secondary, for me, to the worker protection role (albeit related).

[Michael]

Not a necessity according to whom?
It is not a necessity that any given person work for any given enterprise, or that any given enterprise must have employees. These are voluntary choices, not necessities.

Therefore, state-sanctioned measures of anti-liberty are not justified at all for unionism.

I hold that liberty may only be infringed by a matter of universal necessity. Government is anti-liberty, but is a matter of necessity. Unionism is also anti-liberty, but is not a matter of universal necessity.

The intrinsic philosophy behind organized labor is sound. In a free market society, (and forgive me if I throw out a few economic terms, I'm not trying to lend weight to my argument by using them, they are just convenient) the owner of resources and capital is an absolute dictator. The laborer is entirely dependent on the benevolence of that dictator, which is almost guaranteed to be sparse at best. That is the laborer as an individual. Like any dictatorship, however, the dictator is dependent on laborer as a whole, in this case for production.

I'm starting to sound like a college student who just discovered communism, and that's annoying, but whatever.

Anyway, the purpose, and justification, for a labor union is collective bargaining. You can call that brute force, but it is reactionary. It does not exist in a vacuum. A Union's demands can be too much, at times, but the circumstancial overstepping of bounds is not an indictment of the process.

The owner of capital may be rich and powerful, but a dictator he is not. If you don't like the terms of employment offered, you are not obliged to contract your labor. In a free market, there are always going to be other enterprises with other terms of employment available.

Secondly, the owner of capital, and the terms of any contract of employment, are always subject to the rule of law.

Thirdly, collective bargaining sounds like a reasonable principle - but only if you overlook the fact that it requires a legally mandated monopoly and all employees (like the ownership) are legally forced to comply with it whether they like it or not. This is anti-liberty (based on legal brute force).

I accept legal brute force being used to apprehend suspected criminal behavior, or to defend the state itself, but I cannot accept legal brute force being used to enforce union labor monopolies (that are necessary for unions to function). This is a perversity of the authority of the state.

I reject the idea that unionism is to blame for creating the dichotomy between management and labor: the abuse of the worker because of the cut-throat profit model necessitated by the "free" market is responsible. The union is a reaction to that.
You are attacking a strawman statement here. I did not say that unionism creates the dichotomy. I admitted specifically that a potential for dichotomy naturally exists there (that pre-exists any unionism).

My critique stated specifically that unionism entrenches, formalizes and institutionalizes that dichotomy (making it rigid, inflexible and permanent) - which in turn reduces or harms potential alternative resolutions of this naturally occuring dichotomy (because unionism is monopolistic by definition). Monopolies are never good things for anyone except those who control them.

I have also pointed out that the principle of free association and equality under law are (or ought to be) sufficient for the purpose of redress of labor market conditions. Unionism is a paracitical organizational type that is entirely predicated upon a legally enforced monopoly. Unionism always seeks to serve the interests of unionism, not necessarily the best interests of the workers, the enterprise or society itself. That's all well and fine if unions were private or free associations, but they are not - they are dependent upon statutory legislation and state sanctioned enforcement.

I hold that government statutory authority must not be used to create monopolies that are not a demonstrated necessity (such as the existence of the state itself, or the application of criminal law, or national defense, where monopolies are deemed to be justified necessities).

As for official governmental acknowledgement of organized labor, well I see that not only as important but as positive. Governments, by and large, engage in consistent corporate sycophancy. I don't see it as a bad thing that they get up off their knees every now and again throw the other side a bone.
It is a decisively critical point. Without it, unions are just predatory gangs.

Employees of any given enterprise do not have a fundamental right to hold private property as hostage (i.e. a 'strike'). State-saction of this right of force of occupation is unacceptable on the grounds of anti-liberty. Legally forcing all employees of an enterprise to be complicite is equally obnoxious to liberty.

As such, your argument essentially asserts that unions are good because they are politically necessary to counter the political power of capitalism. While I might agree that this could be desirable, I don't think it is rationally justified or philosophically acceptable. :)

Again, all of the 'good' elements of union labor agitation could be achieved through the exercise of the right of free association and the right of equality before the law. These are the common law, democratic and liberty-respecting tools of civil redress that are built-in to our legal system. Unionism does not respect the common law tradition, democratic principles or liberty. Unionism requires a state-sanctioned monopoly for the sake of political ideology and that is just completely unacceptable and unjustifiable when alternative forms of redress and/or collective bargaining may be readily available that are not predicated upon monopoly enforcement.

And when the government doesn't back unions? This (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_massacre) happens.
My arguments of economics and politics are always predicated upon western socio-cultural nations. The socio-cultural, economic and political systems of nations outside the tight circle of the core of 'western' nations contain so much diversity and stunted development that it is impossible to apply arguments from one to the other.

If we are going to discuss Central/South America (or Africa or Asia), then all of my liberty based arguments go out the window because most of these places do not have the same traditional, historical and customary claim of liberty that is the legal basis of the western tradition.

I would likely take an entirely different approach to analyzing political issues in these places than I do for most advanced western nations. I do not counsel one solution to any given issue. Policy solutions are always relative to the time and place of a given problem. :)

[Michael]

ok I will, but be gentle with me...
Gentle? Your humble Christian modesty fools me not. Your arguments speak for themselves and they are impressively good ones. :thumbsup:


Pro's

1. Liberty without equality results in oppression

While Liberty is an admirable goal, liberty without some semblance of equality results in oppression by the minority. While societies naturally form aristocracies of some sort, a society that solely focuses on liberty will exaggerate the stratification of society. Liberty naturally allows some citizens to prosper more than others (as Alexis de Tocqueville noted). With prosperity often comes power and those with power will always use all available means to keep said power. So while liberty is a good goal for Western society, we must also add in equality to make sure the minority does not control the majority. Unions provide a valuable service in restraining the minority and keeping a balance between those with power and those without. Liberty does not exist in a vacuum.
You use a variation of my own 'defense of religion' argument (and de Tocqueville no less!) against me to defend unions and you ask me to be gentle? :rofl:

I'm almost ready to wave a white flag on this point, but I do think that my argument that the right of free association, free markets and the civil court system are (or ought to be) sufficient is still valid here. And it is also to be noted that the rules of democratic majority rule do decree that the state may legislate or institutionalize such systems (on the basis of politics). On this basis I would argue that unionism is an inefficient and ineffective policy tool for the state to sanction for this political policy purpose. :D


2. Almost everything is an artificial construct

Short of God, creation, and perhaps an eschatological view of the church all things are artificial. The Corporation is just as much an artificial construct as the union is. In fact, the corporation is even more of a construct considering it is consistently given the rights of an actual human being. Governments, nations, and all institutions function under artificially created premises. The actions undertaken by a union derive from the rights that we as a society have agreed upon (most notably the right to the pursuit of happiness)
Again, a masterful argument. Your Christian modesty act is wearing VERY thin! :lol:

I defintely do have to wave the white flag on this point. All are indeed artificial- political in form.


3. Wealth is the goal

While management styles may very, but the all consuming goal of profit is a constant. Wealth corrupts and "is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10). To argue that management will willingly take a hit to profit just because it is proper to give people a fair wage fails to take into account human nature.

Furthermore, one cannot rely on the courts, legislative bodies, or government executives to protect the rights of the worker. History has consistently shown that these bodies are often the easiest to corrupt with the wealth of the minority. Given this reality, it is the right (and duty toward democracy) of the people to safeguard their own livelihood by whatever means necessary. Unions happen to be the most peaceful means.

Now i am going to make sure I am not struck by lightning...

.
I think Fordism (and Kruppism) shows that corporations can do exactly what you say they will not do.

For me, the key is that unionism is not a particularly good policy tool to achieve what is supposedly desired. In fact, the existence of unions potentially reduces the impetus for proper address of the political issues through the legislature and may serve only to entrench a dichotomy of inequality by seeking to duplicate the relations of a factory floor onto the legislature itself. This is not representative of society and ought not to be assumed to be so.

As a political strategy, unionism is dangerous because it alienates the middle class. Unionism is in reality a working class movement. If the elites are the all-powerful enemy, then the working class and the middle class have to be political allies - but unionism works to politically divide the middle class and the working class. This is a bad political strategy that ultimately empowers the ruling class.

[Daktoria]

The biggest problem with unions is that when lobbying is allowed as a matter of integrating the free market into government, unions exploit democracy by using their strength in numbers such that labor ends up violating property rights.

Technically speaking, there shouldn't be a lobbying market because government should be recognized as a burden and anyone who tries to even interact with it should be duly punished. The problem is that in democracy, like all governments dependent upon popular sovereignty, civic virtue is a necessity.

However, if lobbying is eliminated, then there's nothing wrong with unions because (as I've said before) they're effectively just labor firms trying to maximize market share and return on the investment of membership for investors.

On the flip side, everlasting corporations shouldn't exist either because charters are supposed to be granted for temporary projects, not for permanent operations. The reason they do exist permanently is because stockholders don't want to have their livelihoods at risk as collateral in case the company is held liable from default or verdict.

Can't really unwind the operations of massive corporations now though since the rule of law would end up betraying so many investors who got into it after the act already started. Streamlined operations are streamlined.

[hrcanada1]

You are absolutely right, but in my opinion assist employees who are treated unfairly. good becomes a septic system that works and employers against each other, creating a legacy that engenders mistrust, bad.