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Quote by: liverleef You make some good points but I disagree with much of your statement. Using your example of steel unions, the steel unions lobbied hard for tariffs on imported steel. Obviously they were concerned about the availability of cheap foreign steel to US manufacturers. Unfortunately tariffs would only give greater advantage to foreign factories who can purchase the cheap steel. In the end, some American plants would close because they would not be able to compete with factories in other countries who have access to the more inexpensive steel.
It's something that we don't hear much about because the workers at these small factories throughout the US that depend on cheap steel do not have a collective voice like the steel workers union have.
Also, because unions drive up the cost of labor, there will be less demand for the goods and services associated with that union. This would obviously cause there to be a decrease in the number of professionals working in that trade. In short, many people who would love to have a job in that profession are unable to because of this.
This was Milton Friedman's philosophy on unions although he explained it much more eloquently than I could. Friedman was off base on his theories about monetary policy but most of his thoughts on economics were pretty interesting.
Thats just my two cents. |
I didn't know all of this negative stuff about the steel union. Obviously I do not support government involvement or government lobbying assosciated with unions. I believe they should be totally private. I only brought up those 2 examples to illustrate how they help the little guy get higher wages.
As far as driving up the cost of labor goes, we already do it with minimum wage. I assert that if you got rid of minimum wage (part of the capatalist utopia that I envision), the unions would balance it out. This is assuming that both the buisinesses and the unions are unregulated.