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I’ve always thought the answer to the union “problem” was easy: multiple unions. Mandate that no more than, say, 30% of the workforce may be part of a single union, then let them fight it out. Monopolies suck both when it comes to corporations and the workforce.

In my experience corruption sinks in on both sides when people can get away with putting in place policies to protect the status quo. When there are multiple options, and the same antitrust policies that are in place to prevent collusion between employers are also enforced to prevent “unionization of unions,” I believe that is when the individual worker actually wins.

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"I support unions, but only when a non-plurality of employees can join them and they aren't allowed to work together" is an anti-union position.

Did it occur to you that perhaps I'm not "pro union" but rather "pro (honest) worker rights," and that they're absolutely not one and the same thing?

Sure and also make sure that a single hr department can’t hire more than 30% of the staff and make them compete for employees.

You have a single employer on one side, you need a single union on the other side to make negotiations fair, otherwise they just would just low ball each other to get more jobs.

The history of labor activism shows that workers only get big gains when they work together.

Unions were largely a victim of their own success, though — once a lot of their gains were codified into laws and regulations there wasn’t as much to fight for.

I think the multiple employer comes from having multiple employers in the marketplace for a given profession, the logic being that an employer should not be restricted to a single union just as a union should not be restricted to a single employer.

You do have multiple employers, and a single union can represent workers across an industry, not just at 1 employer. Having multiple unions would remove the monopoly power unions enjoy, but a triopoly is still pretty powerfull, and reduces the risk of corruption.

Of course, if the triopoly was enforced by statute, then a corrupt member could act with impunity knowing that it cannot loose too much of its power.

Also known as "I support Unions, but only when they don't actually have any power".

So how do you create a union that has the right amount of power? When unions are able to, & do, kill the host company through greed & short-term thinking, something is wrong with the structure.

> When unions are able to, & do, kill the host company through greed & short-term thinking, something is wrong with the structure.

I love how this argument gets applied to unions but not to companies. Many companies have killed themselves through greed and short-term thinking, yet you are not arguing that something is wrong with corporate structure.

Ultimately every human organization is prone to screwing up - unions are not at all unique here - but in the US unions often get singled out as a boogey man that hurts the economy.

I guess to me it just seems especially perverse, because the union is supposed to be working in the interest of the worker. The worker even pays the union. Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker.

Corporations can sink themselves because they are granted self-determination. That's sort of fundamental, sans bailouts.

That said, I would be happy if we could tweak incentives to shift focus away from short term returns towards long term. Companies are not perfect either, and my omission was not meant to imply they were.

>Yet sinking the company is not in the interest of the worker.

It's not necessarily a big deal. The workers can just go and get another job. It's the owners who are really crying.

It's not especially perverse for unions to be indifferent to the risk of sinking the company if the people they represent hold no stake in it.

Especially since the threats that this will happen from the owners will be overblown.

I guess I didn't mention, but I'm most specifically thinking of unions that have sunk the company in a fight over pension obligations. Union has a choice of reduced pension payout, or drive the company under & everybody loses their pension as a result. Union, unwilling to reduce pension payout, chooses the latter. Everybody winds up worse off. It almost reminds me of The Scorpion and The Frog

Every time I've heard of this happening it's because the pension fund has been raided beforehand.

I guess it's like that "fairness experiment" where monkeys would rather deprive the other side of 8 berries than take 2.

What world do you live in where losing your job is "not a big deal," and anyone "can just go and get another job?"

If that were true, we wouldn't need unions in the first place.

shrug I've done it while on minimum wage. Unions are needed to raise wages, not because it's necessarily hard to move from one low wage job to another. People do it all the time.

The company going out of business is a problem for the employees and is obviously a risk, it's just not a big and existential risk like it is for the owners.

Let me reverse this and see how it sounds:

"So how do you create a CEO and Board that has the right amount of power? When CEO's and Boards are able to, & do, kill the host company through greed & short-term thinking, something is wrong with the structure".

I'd argue that a CEO running a company into the ground for their own selfish, short term gains is far worse than a union ruining a company, because at least when the latter occurs it's because a significant amount of the employees aren't being sufficiently paid, or are being subject to unsafe/inadequate conditions. That is far more important than a CEO getting a bonus.

How many times has this actually happened, and were they even the root cause or would the company have failed for some other reason anyway?

Then you wind up with a union cartel. I would bet good money on that.

the power of a union is the ability of its workers to withhold labor. this would make unions ineffective and I'm not sure what the upside is other than an aversion to monopolies.

The actual true power of unions is to restrict entry to the trade. A union that is adversarial to employers may achieve some insignificant pay increases. But the only truly successful unions when it comes to improving pay and working conditions have exclusively done so through limiting entry to the profession, think the AMA, ALPA, Bar Associations.

Professional sports unions are also very good examples of this as well.

I appreciate that you believe that, but that's simply not based in any historical fact. The height of the AFL, IWW, etc. in terms of power was when their power to strike, especially wildcat strike, was the highest. At that time unions had more twice the membership amongst working people than they do now. Hardly a sign of unions winning because they keep workers out (racism aside).

You’re confusing a nebulous idea of political influence with real outcomes. Strikes have been used to resolve labor disputes, but if your goal is long term and meanful improvement to working conditions and remuneration, then the only times unions have ever achieved that is by restricting access to the profession. Salaries are determined by market forces, political influence will never be able to exert much pressure on the equilibrium. The only time unions have truly succeeded in this is by limiting labor supply over the long term.

Again, just not true.

> Strikes have been used to resolve labor disputes, but if your goal is long term and meanful improvement to working conditions and remuneration, then the only times unions have ever achieved that is by restricting access to the profession.

Collective bargaining is how unions achieve long term and meaningful improvement to working conditions and renumeration.

> Salaries are determined by market forces, political influence will never be able to exert much pressure on the equilibrium.

This is just demonstrably untrue -- we've been in a bull market for almost a decade. Worker pay -- in contrast to company profits -- hasn't even kept up with inflation. Something is missing.

> The only time unions have truly succeeded in this is by limiting labor supply over the long term.

Do you have any citations for this? Any data?

Aside from the philosophical objections to this model, think about the practical issues that arise, specifically regarding overhead. Unions are notorious for having well-paid administrative staff and leadership, and that does not scale with three or four separate unions. You end up with a net drain even if you were able to eke out some slight pay advantage.

> Unions are notorious for having well-paid administrative staff and leadership

Couldn't you say the same about corporations?

Corporations are spending their own money, unions are spending someone else's. That's the main difference. To be clear what I mean: At least in my country it is a legal requirement for the corporation to pay salaries of union leaders and staff - few FTEs per union.

Corporations are spending someone else’s money. They aren’t a mint. That is in no way different. A corporation is accountable to its owners, and a union is accountable to its owners. A corporation usually has fewer owners than a union, or at least can ignore most owners who aren’t on the board; whereas union leadership can be changed by its members, the workers.

But if the unions weren't as big then they wouldn't need as many administrators, would they?

You are holding unions to a standard that corporations can't achieve.

That's a cool idea, anyone know if anything like this has been put in place somewhere?

Taken to the limit most regular employees are a union of 1 and it doesnt work like a union. How would collective action (strikes) work? What about tragedy of the commons (join the cheaper union, but get the better collective bargain) ?

In Italy that’s basically what happened. Because each political party had its own trade unions, and there were quite a few parties after WWII, pretty much any unionised workforce is split between three or more unions.

The results differ by sector. In some cases, this plurality allowed for classic “divide & rule” strategies from management; in others, it produced chaos because each union can (and will) call for strikes at different times with little or no coordination, or refuse to agree on deals that everyone else has accepted.

The best outcomes have been consistently obtained in companies and sectors where the plurality was reduced to one or two dominant unions. Some competition is good, but it significantly increases complexity in all related processes.

> Monopolies suck both when it comes to corporations and the workforce.

Agree with the idea, but in pracice every employee can just pack their baga and go to another other company. If enough employees do that, then companies sooner or later have to change, or remain with the worst of the workforce. There is monopoly on employment.

> but in pracice every employee can just pack their baga and go to another other company

Maybe you don't live in America, or maybe you grew up with lots of privilege, but in reality, not a lot of people can do this. If you pack your bags and leave, you need to have some way to feed yourself, clothe yourself, and get health care, which is most likely provided by your employer.

The people who have the least ability to do these things without a job are also the ones who are most exploited.

Of course, universal health care and a universal income would solve these problems...

Not everyone has the luxury to just switch jobs. A large portion of the population has very few job options so they get exploited by employers who know they don't really have other options.

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