Quote:
Originally Posted by SEC_Chick
Then it would be great if a union only negotiated on behalf of people who wanted such representation and were willing to pay for it, and didn't compel people to be members to keep their job. There are plenty of people who don't want to be "organized".
I would much prefer to be able to negotiate for what is important to me, not at the expense of protecting others who may not be doing their jobs.
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I'm sympathetic to your point, but if I might go meta for a moment...
Think of labor as "sweat capital." If a company needs labor, it should be compelled to acquire that sweat capital under the same terms it would acquire liquid capital.
In regard to liquid capital, it can sell shares or take on debt. It usually does both. In the former instance, it dilutes the value of its shares. In the latter, it must pay interest. These are costs. And in terms of debt, those costs are what the market can get away with charging the corp. If the bank doesn't like the credit risk, it may charge the corporation through the nose.
Labor should be able to charge the corporation for sweat capital at whatever cost the providers of such sweat capital can extract. But the only way sweat capital can increase its value, to give it negotiating power equivalent to providers of liquid capital, is by compelling all providers of such capital into a pool. If individuals are able to opt out, the providers of sweat capital are placed at a structural disadvantage.
I don't like the idea of forcing anyone to pay dues to anybody else. But as a pragmatist, and one who believes that unions are necessary "sweat capital aggregators" without which inequality will further soar, I see zero economic benefit in this decision.
Yes, I'm allowing economics to trump law here. But this decision is enabling a "race to the bottom" we can hardly afford. If we eviscerate the middle class's purchasing power much further, we're going to soon reach two ugly realities:
1. Nobody will have any retirement savings because of the divergence between wages and increasing costs of living (particularly where Trump is starting a trade war that's going spike inflation);
2. These companies that have abused their leverage over the providers of "sweat capital" will have no one to sell their products to in this country.
Unions may often be run by corrupt and piggish management. But union wages for the guys who actually provide the sweat capital are a very necessary component of our economy's purchasing capacity. Too often, we confuse the two.
