Quote:
Originally posted by onasis,
Today as well as in earlier times, free markets and less government intervention allows employers to treat worker's like crap. The right to form unions and collectively bargain is completely shut down. Bargaining is an essential tenenment to capitalism that allows fairness, that's why capitalism is seen as such of a bad thing, by some people. It's not advocating communism or not even socialism, it's advocating worker's rights to compete in the market just as commodities would. |
I tend to think that forced bargaining is a bad way of getting what you want. The only thing I like about unions is that they opt for the only real option available to employees: they walk out. Employers can't run a business if there are no employees. It's like voting but with your feet.
I don't see how having a union in this scenario is different from a free market system where the employees are free to come and go as they please?
Here's the flip side of unions that I've seen though. My wife's uncle works for a paper in detroit. The union 4-5 years ago forced them to strike. He was without a job for that many years. The only way he survived was his wife's job and selling books on amazon. His union would not let him get another job or work for another paper.
So my question is, is it fair to impoverish employees who don't want it? Could you explain how the two systems, in your opinion, are better/worse than each other? In otherwords what are the pros/cons in your opinion?