House of Eratosthenes

One principled argument [in favor of unions] is that the “right” to unionize is something that flows from free speech, or assembly, or something – something like an obvious emergent right that builds off basic, individual, inalienable rights.

This justification breaks down upon even the most superficial inspection. If all unions were about was speech and assembly, there would be nothing controversial about them. Yes of course, people have the right to form ‘clubs’ of whatever sort with each other, go to meetings, give part of their paycheck to other people, to complain about things, and if they are really unhappy with their working conditions, not go to work and say they’ll only come back if they get more pay. But that is not actually what unions do – none of that is where the rubber meets the road, because it fails to incorporate the key points about modern unions: 1. being able to force people to join them, i.e. monopolize labor, 2. being able to force a company to negotiate with certain dudes that have been anointed the union leaders, and 3. the company is not allowed to fire people when they don’t come to work (which is ridiculous!).

Points 1-3 form the actual teeth of unions. Without them, unions would be superfluous and pointless. With them, unions are what they are. But none of 1-3 flow from the right to free speech, or free assembly, or any other individual right of any kind.
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[T]he argument is that, as constructed, the system of corporations becomes too powerful and if given no counterbalance this would lead to a bad situation for employees. Hence, let’s empower unions too, by whatever right and authority we used to empower corporations.

This argument, I must say, has some merit. It can’t be easily dismissed; there could be something to it. At the very least, even the most instinctively anti-union person (such as myself) must recognize that there could be sectors or industries in which the (government-created, after all) corporate structure leads to a warped situation, and against which unions are a reasonable and feasible solution.

But this argument ONLY WORKS IF WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THE PRIVATE SECTOR.

James Taranto (inadvertently) continues this train of thought in today’s Best of the Web:

There is a fundamental difference between private- and public-sector workers. A private-sector labor dispute is a clear clash of competing interests, with management representing shareholders and unions representing workers. In the public sector, as George Will notes, taxpayers–whose position is analogous to that of shareholders–are usually denied a seat at the table:

Such unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway – grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members’ employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees’ salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy “negotiations” with unions.

Collective bargaining in the public sector thus is less a negotiation than a conspiracy to steal money from taxpayers.

And one other point of Taranto’s. It doesn’t fit in anywhere, but it’s too good to leave unmentioned so I’ll simply tack it on to the end:

Here is the contradiction of progressivism. Progressives tell us they want the government to do more. But they can’t win elections without public-sector unions. Because they are beholden to those unions, their main priority when in power is to increase the cost, not the scope, of government. Because resources are finite, the result is the worst of both worlds: a government that taxes more without doing more. This is unsustainable economically. Fortunately, as Wisconsin voters showed last November, it’s unsustainable politically as well.

Are we not having a Fahrenheit 451 moment?
- Kini | 02/23/2011 @ 00:20
Here’s what I’m not understanding, especially with regard to public-sector unions.

What part of “we can’t afford to keep paying these inflated wages and generous health care benefits” do the likes of the protesters in Wisconsin and Ohio not understand?

Every state in the union, it seems, is running some gargantuan budget deficit. Certainly the bigger, bluer ones: California, New York, Illinois. The contracts that these unions have negotiated are a big part of the problem.

Over on the Hello Kitty of Blogging, as you call it…there was an animated conversation on this. One of my friends (along with three other people I don’t know) were sitting there agreeing with each other about how evil corporations (and the “corporate media”) were conspiring to screw the little guy. One of them chimed in with how the IQ of the country dropped a couple of points when Bush was re-elected in 2004; but not in 2000 since the Surpreme Court had “taken care of that (putting Bush in office). Another savaged Reagan for firing the air traffic controllers 30 years ago.

I politely pointed out that Reagan fired the air traffic controllers because they were in violation of the law by striking. I added that they were warned; they struck anyway; he fired them, and they therefore paid the price for breaking the law.

My comment was deleted from the thread within minutes. Tells you a lot about the ability of progressives to contend with the facts of a situation, or even an opinion which challenges their precious little worldview.

Unions are a blight, frankly. All they do is confiscate their members’ money, use it to elect Democrats to Congress, and look after their own interests. Nothing they do is of any benefit to the rest of society, much less that of their employers. The latter are going out of business right and left because they can’t afford to keep paying union members the negotiated packages; on the public sector side, governments are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy for the same reason.

Bravo to the governor of Wisconsin. It’s time to restore sanity to public employees’ relationship with the government.
- cylarz | 02/23/2011 @ 02:21
They don’t get it because they’re not mentally capable of getting it.

For the longest time, I’ve swung between “it’s a mental illness” and “they’re severely emotionally stunted” as my go-to explanation for leftist attitudes. But having watched how they are when they’re in power yet faced with real choices, I’m forced to conclude: they’re a different species. Something in the water around 1945 sped up evolution in one particular direction, such that the self-righteousness genes got pumped up while the “logical comprehension” genes got suppressed.

For example: I knew lots of folks who were wild about Dear Leader’s proposed massive expansions of “social services.” Yet these same people honestly seemed to believe Dear Leader’s oft-repeated campaign claim that “95% of Americans would be getting a tax cut.” At the time I wrote it off to the gullibility of wishful thinking, but now I’m not so sure. I’d press them on it, and they’d say something about “smart government” and “cutting inefficiencies.” Which I could just barely see (again, granting gravity-destabilizing amounts of wishful thinking).

But now? Numbers don’t lie. And yet they still keep on keeping on. I have to conclude that they just don’t use words the way we normals do. Dear Leader and Daily Kos and the media say that it’s sustainable, and therefore it is sustainable. It’s just. that. simple. Andrea Mitchell says everything’s fine. What’s so hard to understand about that, wingnuts?

Either that, or they’re like the Russian peasant in the old joke. A genie grants a commoner of every country one wish. The American wishes for good looks, the Japanese wishes for honor, and so on down the line of stereotypes until they get to the Russian. The Russian peasant says: “I have no cow. My neighbor has a cow. I wish that my neighbor also has no cow.”

It’s one or the other… but I’m feeling charitable this morning, so I’ll stick with evolution.
- Severian | 02/23/2011 @ 06:05
I’m not a fan of unions either, but there is one thing that all of you are missing and it is this.

Make no mistake about it, Big Business, aided and abetted by Big Government and cheered on by Big Media have decided to pursue a path of Ever Decreasing Wages.

Many of us still make good money so we don’t see it yet, but if we look around we see more and more people being forced from the middle class into poverty.

It would take to much to document it here in this comment, but I have numerous key articles describing what I have found over the last 4 years, so start with the Why KAAW page at Keep America At Work.

Let me ask each of you reading this article one question.

Who is standing in the way of this concentrated war for Ever Decreasing Wages besides the Unions?
And each of us, rather then standing beside them and saying enough is enough, we want our children to have a future, have turned our backs on the unions so that Governors like Walker and Christie can squash the Union Members.

In time this war on Ever Decreasing Wages will turn on you or somebody in your family.

Wouldn’t it be better to join the Unions and Keep America At Work to raise revenue by bringing our jobs home?

Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com
- vbierschwale | 02/23/2011 @ 06:37
Hey Virgil,

If the union says it is time for the wages/benefits in a job to increase, and the forces of the free market say no it isn’t…or that the wages in that job even have to go down for a period of time to contend with a slackening of demand (think of public schools, postal service, air travel)…but the union wins, then what has happened is the union has done something to send those jobs overseas.
- mkfreeberg | 02/23/2011 @ 06:46
Exactly, Morgan.
- cylarz | 02/23/2011 @ 11:53
I love how, in unionland, only “Big Business” can ever do anything, and only “the union” is standing up against it.

Question for unionistas: do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, the CEO of Ford, the chairman of the board of US Steel, and Prudential Financial regularly sit around a meeting room somewhere and plan out what “Big Business” should do next. Yes or no? ‘Cause it surely sounds that way when y’all talk.

Another question for unionistas: yes or no, you do realize that the state employees currently doing their thing in Madison have nothing to do with “Big Business,” right? They’re government employees. Meaning their salaries are paid by taxes, which… wait for it … wait for it… kinda makes them our employees, no? I say fire the lot of them.

Final question for unionistas (and then I’m done). This is a three-parter, so you might need to put some thought into this one: Whatever happened to the domestic steel and auto industries? Is there a reason all our steel comes from China and our cars from Japan? Could the United Steelworkers, UAW, and the Teamsters have anything –anything at all — to do with that?

Sheesh. I’d love to know where it says that once you get a job, you keep that job forever more and your salary increases every year. ‘Cause several of the jobs I’ve been let go, laid off, outsourced, or downsized from owe me some big fat paychecks if that’s the rule…
- Severian | 02/23/2011 @ 14:43

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“On Unions”Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

“On Unions”
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011