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Do Americans today still need labor unions? NO: LABOR UNIONS ADD TO COSTS AND DISCOURAGE PRODUCTIVITY
To form a more coercive union
Date published: 3/30/2008
WASHINGTON-- Would you want to work for a company that treats all workers exactly the same, no matter how hard they work? What about one that promotes only on the basis of seniority and not merit?Few Americans want a job with an employer who ignores their individual efforts. Yet that's what labor unions offer employees today. Small wonder membership is steadily declining. The premise of collective bargaining is that by representing all employees a union can negotiate a better collective contract than each worker could get through individual negotiations. But because the union negotiates collectively, the same contract covers every worker, regardless of his or her productivity or effort. In the manufacturing economy of the 1930s, this worked reasonably well. An employee's unique talents and skills made little difference on the assembly line. INDIVIDUAL ABILITIES In today's knowledge economy, however, collective representation makes little sense. Machines perform most of the repetitive manufacturing tasks of yesteryear. Employers now want employees with individual insights and abilities. The fastest-growing occupations over the past quarter-century have been professional, technical, and managerial in nature. The jobs of the future include Web designers, interior decorators, and public-relations specialists, among others. These jobs depend on the creativity and skills of individual employees. Few workers today want a one-size-fits-all contract that ignores what they individually bring to the bargaining table. Union-negotiated, seniority-based promotions and raises feel like chains to workers who want to get ahead. Additionally, economic changes mean that unions can no longer deliver large gains to their members. Unions boast that their members earn higher wages than non-union workers. But they don't create money out of thin air. They use their bargaining power to take it from someone else. Contrary to popular impression, that someone is usually not business owners. It is consumers, who pay higher prices when companies pass on the added cost of the union-wage bill. But companies can pass union costs on only when customers cannot shop elsewhere. Deregulation and free trade have increased competition, and benefit both consumers and the economy. NAFTA alone saves a typical family $2,000 a year. But increased competition also means that unions cannot win above-market wages through collective bargaining. Companies no longer have monopoly profits to afford those inflated wages.
Date published: 3/30/2008
Heritage Foundation is a conservative
(posted by
biosco
, Mar. 30, 2008 9:01 pm)
think tank so we are not surprised when Mr. Sherk trashes the unions. Good point Useful Idiot. Notice Sherk mentioned nothing about excessive CEO salaries and severance package costs being passed on to the consumers !!!
If labor unions were so bad for the auto industry,
(posted by
UsefulIdiot
, Mar. 30, 2008 8:17 am)
then Volvo, Mercedes, and BMW should be out of business.Moreover, Sweden, Germany, and Japan have unionization, universal health care, and a broad social safety net which provide security for workers and prosperity for all. GM's problems were brought on by poor management and skyrocketing health care costs. Our economic problems are the result of policies which favor CEOs over labor, especially those CEOs who awarded themselves huge bonuses while they led their companies into bankruptcy.
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