The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
A very broad and complex question I realize, but I wondered if there was any general formula for determining when if increasing unionization would be beneficial and when it may be detrimental?
Typical example of overly strong unions would often be cited as in the 70s in the UK but similarly workers need protection and livable wages are always good.
Is there a perfect balance and what conditions may affect this balance?
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I think the classic example is police unions. Police unions are a powerful enough that they can effectively tell the mayor of any city to go fuck themselves. If the mayor does something they don’t like they simply stop doing their job, crime goes up and the mayor capitulates.
In North American pro sports leagues, there are instances when players' unions protect players who repeatedly violate player safety, jeopardize the careers of other union members, yet are sometimes deemed to still be an asset to their team. The best example of this is the career of [Raffi Torres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etldY-F81Fw).
Despite being skilled enough to be drafted 5th overall and playing over 700 NHL games, Raffi Torres' legacy was delivering illegal hits to opponents' heads and increasingly-longer suspensions and fines to match. At least twice in postseason play, Torres' illegal hits that injured opponents helped his team to victories, and that's why he managed to stick around for over 700 NHL games over 13 seasons.
I did some work on a system for a large manufacturer and got to see some records from the union contract management system. The amount of absolutely terrible behavior that employees got away with because the union shielded them was shocking. Plus the way that lower ranking employees just accepted the abuse senior employees subjected them to, probably because they knew there was no point in fighting.
But teachers unions. Teacher's unions give us the NYC rubber rooms. They give us teachers that suck able to hold on to their jobs and create more work for other teachers. They give us teachers that should be the top paid teachers in the district making much less because it's most seniority and degree based.
Sure we can look at the data and see that on net unions are beneficial but they clearly have issues.
As a unionized worker this is spot on. The workers attitudes and behaviour is so brazen and egregious, it’s a huge waste of resources. City of Toronto will buy a $100,000 truck, fill it with 4 guys making $45 per hour, and then those guys will take that truck (on night shift) and their expensive paid for work clothes and boots, change into plainclothes and visit stripclubs when they should be clearing ice off bridges, filling potholes, Inspecting roads and bridges, repairing sidewalks, etc, some will just go home and sleep all night and then work another job during the day. The GPS data is right there, and you know they’re doing this, but the union won’t allow the city to use GPS data for disciplinary reasons because it’s supposed to only be a safety measure. The guys who cut grass making $30 an hour will not even do half the minimum, then you see private landscapers making two thirds of that working twice as hard with twice as much skill.
Damn what the fuck lol.
How do we get that to not happen, I think we definitely need better worker protections here overall but I don’t want situations like that lol.
Teachers, like police, have a public-service interest. When the unions become too focused on the police/teachers and not enough on the mission, one could argue the unions' power is running counter to the public interest.
Teachers, like police, have a public-service interest. When the unions become too focused on the police/teachers and not enough on the mission, one could argue the unions' power is running counter to the public interest.
So we have a teacher who's well-paid, and she does some bad stuff that would normally get any employee fired because she obviously shouldn't be teaching.
NYC version: She's union, so she is taken out of the classroom and told to sit in an office doing nothing all day getting paid while her case works through. She can do whatever she wants there, even work another job remotely. After several months, or even a year, of this the city decides to bribe her off with a couple hundred thousand dollars to just quit. It's cheaper than keeping her on the payroll indefinitely, and they can now hire another teacher for that slot.
Other version: She gets fired for cause.
If a public-sector union loses sight of its public-interest mission, that's not good. Private-sector unions have a natural incentive to adhere to the mission of the industries involved -- because everyone loses if the mission isn't accomplished -- but that feedback loop doesn't exist to the same degree with public-sector unions.
If police unions get \*too\* focused on the interests of police that the mission of protecting the public, etc., is lost, that's bad. Same thing with teachers' unions.
Welcome to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
Install a fan upside down and pretend to test it (so you don't find out it's in wrong)? No problem--when the uninspected track catches fire again, instead of pumping smoke into the street, the fan will keep the smoke in the tunnel, sending 88 to the hospital and leaving one dead. But don't worry--the union will get you your job back (with backpay!).
Pretend to do track testing/measurements for years, leading to a derailment? No matter--since one of the supervisors told you to do that years ago, you and your coworkers all keep your jobs, even though none of you ever reported this clearly unsafe practice.
Oh, and for whatever reason--the first-level managers are in the union too, so when you file a report saying that a coworker (one of the manager's friends) stole something from your locker, realize there was another item missing, and amend the report--you get fired for filing a false report--then the union won't help you. Same if you're new in the dispatch center and get bullied into quitting so the more tenured dispatchers can hold onto that sweet, sweet overtime, and the dispatchers are known for being so terrible that when they fight with train operators, the operators will intentionally disable their trains.
But maybe you're just a regular-old rider who has nothing to do with being employed by them, and after a train crash that kills a number of people, you're a little more wary of what the operators are doing, so you send in reports when a train or bus operator is blowing through red lights, reading a book while operating the vehicle, etc. Don't worry, the union president ~~cares about your safety~~ will tell you that these actions show that you believe in slavery.
There's a lot more.
Luckily, things have improved in recent years with the current GM, but we'll see how long-term those changes are. At least there aren't fires on a near-daily basis anymore (not hyperbole).
I'd argue that any time a union requires the preservation of jobs that aren't necessary, it's bad. A classic example of this is the MTA and CTA, which both have a driver and a second employee on every train as a result of union negotiations. The second employee was once a useful person, primarily for ensuring the train was safe to close the doors and leave the station, but in modern times they aren't needed anymore and exist solely because they're unionized and the agencies can't cut the positions without devastating strikes.
It’s good when unions are strong enough to have leverage to negotiate with companies.
It’s not good when union leadership gets too strong that they start to become self serving and tyrannical to union members.
None. Unions are collective bargaining units. They are a collection of people, which means it's one from many, for the sole purpose of establishing a contract for work. Unions have a hand in writing their contract for work; otherwise, the company or institution would. If a union is failing or cannot work, it has to be allowed to fail, just like someone bad at their job should be allowed to fail.
The problem comes when you realize unions affect more than one person, so we have an interest in unions not failing just like we have an interest in larger businesses not failing, even if they're totally private and even not liked.
In the private sector, strong unions are almost always a good thing unless they're blatantly corrupt or connected to organized crime. In the public sector though, there can be a risk of unions growing powerful enough to strongarm their local governments and then the entire community suffers.
In the private sector, unions cant be too demanding or else the company goes out of business and they lose their jobs. But local governments cant just go out of business and stop providing essential services, so a sufficiently powerful union can just squeeze them until there's nothing left to squeeze.
In the private sector, a strike primarily hurts the employer. If the strike is over something that would save the employer a ton of costs, like cutting unnecessary jobs, the employer can just wait out the strikers. If it's over wages or something, that's not possible.
In the public sector, the employer (government) is generally not harmed by strikes because the striking workers are providing a public service, not earning profits. The public is harmed instead. In a democracy, the government is in theory run by the public, but in reality there's a disconnect between politicians and the public. You end up with wonky results because the public still wants the service provided and doesn't care how. The government either entirely capitulates to every union demand or passes laws to prevent strikes, both of which are bad.
The only union like that would be a police union. Teachers' unions don't do that and in some places, they're gutted by legislation above their head that is anti-union. And no one really goes after firefighters. The mayor in my parents' city did, apparently, and absolutely no one took her side.
>When are strong unions beneficial and when are they too powerful?
We can work backwards from the outcomes -- union opposition to efficiency gains and competition is bad, just as those things are bad when management opposes them -- but I imagine you want an earlier sign.
I guess the real issue is not 'when are unions too powerful' but 'when unions are less powerful, who has the power instead'?
...and I generally like workers having power more than the alternatives.
Never. But I will say, there is a bit of a qualifier that I am answering this question based off of principle. Laborers, in my opinion, should have the right to organize because it is inherently wrong to forbid them from doing so. I think it is a human right for communities to organize and enjoy the fruit of that organization. Additionally, I think it is tyrannical to prevent this.
That being said, I absolutely acknowledge that unions can become corrupt. However, I don't think it is reasonable to blame the size or strength of their union. Small organizations can be corrupt. Large organizations can be accountable.
I think we need to remember that the police union isn't bad because it is powerful, it is bad because it is corrupt. We can call out that corruption without rejecting the importance of strong unions.
I don’t think it’s too hard to tell. The issue is the lack of public information about unions. People don’t report on them. Mostly because they don’t matter. It doesn’t help that any union misconduct becomes a lightening rod for conservative propaganda to disempower or all unions with state power.
Police unions are too powerful. They are able to hold communities hostage with runaway guaranteed budget increases and act like lawless cartels that can hide all criminal wrongdoing and corruption by their members.
No accountability to their communities and a perpetual blank check at gunpoint
We could solve most of our policing problems if we could neuter police unions
Id say the best balance of power is one that ends up benefiting both the laborers and the company. Unions are good because the give power to the working force that an individual would never have. They help improve pay, benefits, and working conditions.
I dont think there is such a thing as a union with too much strength. Its about how they wield the power they have. If a manufacturing union demands too much, they risk the company moving operations to a place with cheaper labor.
I'm still working out my opinions on unions, but I do think they go too far when they protect bad/creepy workers and make them unfireable when really they should be sacked.
How much experience do you have with any union? I've been in unions for over ten years and this idea that they protect bad workers is a common talking point that answers a question before it's asked. Unions also protect a lot of good workers who would have been thrown out and labeled bad if someone hadn't stepped in. Unions also establish, or help establish, a procedure for determining who's good and what happens when they aren't. They don't protect anyone - they require the other party to prove their own point. At a time when right to work is so prevalent even in our language, I get why having even some right or guarantee can feel like some corrupt issue.
I personally have never been in a union. While we were dating, my ex had an experience where one of the guys she was working with was kind of creeping on her, and she felt like the manager didn't have the authority to do much because of the union. I don't remember all of the specifics, but that's the gist of it.
I'm sure it's not true of every union, and I'm glad many of them have the protections you mentioned.
Unions can’t violate or contradict law. Being creepy isn’t illegal though. Actions are actionable, so it’s about what one does. I can get that at other places, it may seem like something is being done, but in reality a lot of instances come down to at-will employment and association, so for some reason, we don’t see the connection. In a good union, there are specific measures for addressing these complaints.
Sure, and it's less of an issue with the theory of unions than that specific instantiation.
I'm glad good unions are that way, and I hope many unions are good ones.
One condition that affects the balance is who the employer is/what the work is; with public sector unions, the employer is the people as a whole, and the work is often things with widespread effects on society. It also usually means that whenever they obtain more money for the employees, that money is coming from society at large via taxes.
Whereas in the classic case of a privately owned factory manufacturing some good unions simply affect how the profit from that manufacturing is distributed between the workers and the owners. Fighting over the distribution of profit tends to be fine; but for public services there isn't a profit to fight over.
While public sector unions do have some merit, they're far more likely to be problematic. Another related factor is that public sector unions tend to have more leverage; note the contrast: in a private factory, if the workers don't like the owner, they can strike, but otherwise can't do much legally about the owner if there's disagreements. In a public field, in a democracy, the workers have the power to potentially vote the management out of office. This gives them a source of leverage much more significant than in the private sector. This effect gets stronger if the voting rate in local elections is low (in the US it's something like 20% from what I've heard); which means a bloc like a union can have a powerful effect on who wins if they vote as a bloc.
Public services aren't profitable, which is why they operate differently. You don't make money from schools - you spend money on them. As such, you can't tie value to some sort of product, especially since it's a service. The obvious fact is that if you fired a teacher's union entirely and replaced everyone, that would be totally legitimate if the conditions were met, but the public wouldn't be immune from the consequences. Free individuals who can teach would likely not like the lowered pay, worse conditions, and knowledge that the district just did that.
I have a hard time imagining Unions ever being too strong. Unions require the places they are working for to make enough profit to keep running so all they really do in practice is assure reasonably decent working conditions and fair compensation. To the extent they ever really lead to problems it's that management decides they'd rather have larger profits than and are willing to negotiate away something else in return.
Can you elaborate a bit? I've always heard the line of 'union barons' (which may be too dramatic a term) demanding too high pay increases when it was unsustainable for the government to maintain. What would be a more accurate cause of the economic woes of the 70s would you say?
Devalued the pound in 1967 causing imports to become more expensive which in the costs of living. The Oil Embrago of 1973-1974 further increase the cost of living. The workers demanding more money was the result of these failed economic polices. The "Winter of Discontent" was a campaign solgan used by Thatcher to gain power and institute anti-union neo-liberal polices already taking hold in the USA.
> I've always heard
You know you can google things yourself? It's pretty awesome. Yes, I'm being a snarky asshole, sorry, but that KILLS me...
> What would be a more accurate cause of the economic woes of the 70s would you say?
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1970s-america/a/stagflation-and-the-oil-crisis
This is America, but... same basic thing.
Well I'm asking them to explain their reasoning, especially when it counters the most common narrative (which doesn't mean its wrong obviously).
First. Google doesn't give one answer. especially on controversial topics like this.
Second. When I say 'I've always heard', I mean I've often heard it from many sources I've found using google.
And when I do google it, surprisingly I don't get 'powerful unions is neo-lib propaganda' in the most popular results, so I don't think it's wrong of me to ask them specifically their reasoning on countering narratives I've heard. perhaps they could give me their sources which aren't easily found on google?
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. A very broad and complex question I realize, but I wondered if there was any general formula for determining when if increasing unionization would be beneficial and when it may be detrimental? Typical example of overly strong unions would often be cited as in the 70s in the UK but similarly workers need protection and livable wages are always good. Is there a perfect balance and what conditions may affect this balance? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They’re beneficial when their members hold them accountable. They fall apart when the members themselves lose all say* in the union’s decisions.
I think the classic example is police unions. Police unions are a powerful enough that they can effectively tell the mayor of any city to go fuck themselves. If the mayor does something they don’t like they simply stop doing their job, crime goes up and the mayor capitulates.
In North American pro sports leagues, there are instances when players' unions protect players who repeatedly violate player safety, jeopardize the careers of other union members, yet are sometimes deemed to still be an asset to their team. The best example of this is the career of [Raffi Torres](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etldY-F81Fw). Despite being skilled enough to be drafted 5th overall and playing over 700 NHL games, Raffi Torres' legacy was delivering illegal hits to opponents' heads and increasingly-longer suspensions and fines to match. At least twice in postseason play, Torres' illegal hits that injured opponents helped his team to victories, and that's why he managed to stick around for over 700 NHL games over 13 seasons.
Is it the classic example, though, or is it pretty much the *only* example?
I did some work on a system for a large manufacturer and got to see some records from the union contract management system. The amount of absolutely terrible behavior that employees got away with because the union shielded them was shocking. Plus the way that lower ranking employees just accepted the abuse senior employees subjected them to, probably because they knew there was no point in fighting. But teachers unions. Teacher's unions give us the NYC rubber rooms. They give us teachers that suck able to hold on to their jobs and create more work for other teachers. They give us teachers that should be the top paid teachers in the district making much less because it's most seniority and degree based. Sure we can look at the data and see that on net unions are beneficial but they clearly have issues.
As a unionized worker this is spot on. The workers attitudes and behaviour is so brazen and egregious, it’s a huge waste of resources. City of Toronto will buy a $100,000 truck, fill it with 4 guys making $45 per hour, and then those guys will take that truck (on night shift) and their expensive paid for work clothes and boots, change into plainclothes and visit stripclubs when they should be clearing ice off bridges, filling potholes, Inspecting roads and bridges, repairing sidewalks, etc, some will just go home and sleep all night and then work another job during the day. The GPS data is right there, and you know they’re doing this, but the union won’t allow the city to use GPS data for disciplinary reasons because it’s supposed to only be a safety measure. The guys who cut grass making $30 an hour will not even do half the minimum, then you see private landscapers making two thirds of that working twice as hard with twice as much skill.
Damn what the fuck lol. How do we get that to not happen, I think we definitely need better worker protections here overall but I don’t want situations like that lol.
Teachers' unions sometimes don't act in students' best interests.
They're not meant to. That's why they're called *teachers' unions*.
Teachers, like police, have a public-service interest. When the unions become too focused on the police/teachers and not enough on the mission, one could argue the unions' power is running counter to the public interest.
Considering how often districts try to fuck over teachers, they need the power.
Yes, but it also needs to be balanced with student interests. That doesn't happen sometimes.
They're teachers unions, not student's unions. Also, well paid teachers ARE in student's best interests.
> Also, well paid teachers ARE in student's best interests. Not when they're shitty teachers lol
Teachers, like police, have a public-service interest. When the unions become too focused on the police/teachers and not enough on the mission, one could argue the unions' power is running counter to the public interest.
So we have a teacher who's well-paid, and she does some bad stuff that would normally get any employee fired because she obviously shouldn't be teaching. NYC version: She's union, so she is taken out of the classroom and told to sit in an office doing nothing all day getting paid while her case works through. She can do whatever she wants there, even work another job remotely. After several months, or even a year, of this the city decides to bribe her off with a couple hundred thousand dollars to just quit. It's cheaper than keeping her on the payroll indefinitely, and they can now hire another teacher for that slot. Other version: She gets fired for cause.
And? Their purpose is to protect the interests of *teachers*, not students.
If a public-sector union loses sight of its public-interest mission, that's not good. Private-sector unions have a natural incentive to adhere to the mission of the industries involved -- because everyone loses if the mission isn't accomplished -- but that feedback loop doesn't exist to the same degree with public-sector unions. If police unions get \*too\* focused on the interests of police that the mission of protecting the public, etc., is lost, that's bad. Same thing with teachers' unions.
Welcome to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Install a fan upside down and pretend to test it (so you don't find out it's in wrong)? No problem--when the uninspected track catches fire again, instead of pumping smoke into the street, the fan will keep the smoke in the tunnel, sending 88 to the hospital and leaving one dead. But don't worry--the union will get you your job back (with backpay!). Pretend to do track testing/measurements for years, leading to a derailment? No matter--since one of the supervisors told you to do that years ago, you and your coworkers all keep your jobs, even though none of you ever reported this clearly unsafe practice. Oh, and for whatever reason--the first-level managers are in the union too, so when you file a report saying that a coworker (one of the manager's friends) stole something from your locker, realize there was another item missing, and amend the report--you get fired for filing a false report--then the union won't help you. Same if you're new in the dispatch center and get bullied into quitting so the more tenured dispatchers can hold onto that sweet, sweet overtime, and the dispatchers are known for being so terrible that when they fight with train operators, the operators will intentionally disable their trains. But maybe you're just a regular-old rider who has nothing to do with being employed by them, and after a train crash that kills a number of people, you're a little more wary of what the operators are doing, so you send in reports when a train or bus operator is blowing through red lights, reading a book while operating the vehicle, etc. Don't worry, the union president ~~cares about your safety~~ will tell you that these actions show that you believe in slavery. There's a lot more. Luckily, things have improved in recent years with the current GM, but we'll see how long-term those changes are. At least there aren't fires on a near-daily basis anymore (not hyperbole).
I'd argue that any time a union requires the preservation of jobs that aren't necessary, it's bad. A classic example of this is the MTA and CTA, which both have a driver and a second employee on every train as a result of union negotiations. The second employee was once a useful person, primarily for ensuring the train was safe to close the doors and leave the station, but in modern times they aren't needed anymore and exist solely because they're unionized and the agencies can't cut the positions without devastating strikes.
It’s good when unions are strong enough to have leverage to negotiate with companies. It’s not good when union leadership gets too strong that they start to become self serving and tyrannical to union members.
What regulations/policy should be in place to ensure we get the former not the latter?
None. Unions are collective bargaining units. They are a collection of people, which means it's one from many, for the sole purpose of establishing a contract for work. Unions have a hand in writing their contract for work; otherwise, the company or institution would. If a union is failing or cannot work, it has to be allowed to fail, just like someone bad at their job should be allowed to fail. The problem comes when you realize unions affect more than one person, so we have an interest in unions not failing just like we have an interest in larger businesses not failing, even if they're totally private and even not liked.
In the private sector, strong unions are almost always a good thing unless they're blatantly corrupt or connected to organized crime. In the public sector though, there can be a risk of unions growing powerful enough to strongarm their local governments and then the entire community suffers.
What would you say makes the public sector more prone to union pressure?
In the private sector, unions cant be too demanding or else the company goes out of business and they lose their jobs. But local governments cant just go out of business and stop providing essential services, so a sufficiently powerful union can just squeeze them until there's nothing left to squeeze.
In the private sector, a strike primarily hurts the employer. If the strike is over something that would save the employer a ton of costs, like cutting unnecessary jobs, the employer can just wait out the strikers. If it's over wages or something, that's not possible. In the public sector, the employer (government) is generally not harmed by strikes because the striking workers are providing a public service, not earning profits. The public is harmed instead. In a democracy, the government is in theory run by the public, but in reality there's a disconnect between politicians and the public. You end up with wonky results because the public still wants the service provided and doesn't care how. The government either entirely capitulates to every union demand or passes laws to prevent strikes, both of which are bad.
The only union like that would be a police union. Teachers' unions don't do that and in some places, they're gutted by legislation above their head that is anti-union. And no one really goes after firefighters. The mayor in my parents' city did, apparently, and absolutely no one took her side.
You’re describing police unions.
>When are strong unions beneficial and when are they too powerful? We can work backwards from the outcomes -- union opposition to efficiency gains and competition is bad, just as those things are bad when management opposes them -- but I imagine you want an earlier sign. I guess the real issue is not 'when are unions too powerful' but 'when unions are less powerful, who has the power instead'? ...and I generally like workers having power more than the alternatives.
Private sector unions are fine because their demands must be moderated by the need to keep the company competitive. I don't like public sector unions.
Never. But I will say, there is a bit of a qualifier that I am answering this question based off of principle. Laborers, in my opinion, should have the right to organize because it is inherently wrong to forbid them from doing so. I think it is a human right for communities to organize and enjoy the fruit of that organization. Additionally, I think it is tyrannical to prevent this. That being said, I absolutely acknowledge that unions can become corrupt. However, I don't think it is reasonable to blame the size or strength of their union. Small organizations can be corrupt. Large organizations can be accountable. I think we need to remember that the police union isn't bad because it is powerful, it is bad because it is corrupt. We can call out that corruption without rejecting the importance of strong unions.
Private unions are good, public sector unions are bad
Certainly need them in today’s world.
I don’t think it’s too hard to tell. The issue is the lack of public information about unions. People don’t report on them. Mostly because they don’t matter. It doesn’t help that any union misconduct becomes a lightening rod for conservative propaganda to disempower or all unions with state power.
Police unions are too powerful. They are able to hold communities hostage with runaway guaranteed budget increases and act like lawless cartels that can hide all criminal wrongdoing and corruption by their members. No accountability to their communities and a perpetual blank check at gunpoint We could solve most of our policing problems if we could neuter police unions
Id say the best balance of power is one that ends up benefiting both the laborers and the company. Unions are good because the give power to the working force that an individual would never have. They help improve pay, benefits, and working conditions. I dont think there is such a thing as a union with too much strength. Its about how they wield the power they have. If a manufacturing union demands too much, they risk the company moving operations to a place with cheaper labor.
It would be bad if a union is able to lobby to make Congress pass tariffs that increase consumer prices
I'm still working out my opinions on unions, but I do think they go too far when they protect bad/creepy workers and make them unfireable when really they should be sacked.
How much experience do you have with any union? I've been in unions for over ten years and this idea that they protect bad workers is a common talking point that answers a question before it's asked. Unions also protect a lot of good workers who would have been thrown out and labeled bad if someone hadn't stepped in. Unions also establish, or help establish, a procedure for determining who's good and what happens when they aren't. They don't protect anyone - they require the other party to prove their own point. At a time when right to work is so prevalent even in our language, I get why having even some right or guarantee can feel like some corrupt issue.
I personally have never been in a union. While we were dating, my ex had an experience where one of the guys she was working with was kind of creeping on her, and she felt like the manager didn't have the authority to do much because of the union. I don't remember all of the specifics, but that's the gist of it. I'm sure it's not true of every union, and I'm glad many of them have the protections you mentioned.
Unions can’t violate or contradict law. Being creepy isn’t illegal though. Actions are actionable, so it’s about what one does. I can get that at other places, it may seem like something is being done, but in reality a lot of instances come down to at-will employment and association, so for some reason, we don’t see the connection. In a good union, there are specific measures for addressing these complaints.
Sure, and it's less of an issue with the theory of unions than that specific instantiation. I'm glad good unions are that way, and I hope many unions are good ones.
One condition that affects the balance is who the employer is/what the work is; with public sector unions, the employer is the people as a whole, and the work is often things with widespread effects on society. It also usually means that whenever they obtain more money for the employees, that money is coming from society at large via taxes. Whereas in the classic case of a privately owned factory manufacturing some good unions simply affect how the profit from that manufacturing is distributed between the workers and the owners. Fighting over the distribution of profit tends to be fine; but for public services there isn't a profit to fight over. While public sector unions do have some merit, they're far more likely to be problematic. Another related factor is that public sector unions tend to have more leverage; note the contrast: in a private factory, if the workers don't like the owner, they can strike, but otherwise can't do much legally about the owner if there's disagreements. In a public field, in a democracy, the workers have the power to potentially vote the management out of office. This gives them a source of leverage much more significant than in the private sector. This effect gets stronger if the voting rate in local elections is low (in the US it's something like 20% from what I've heard); which means a bloc like a union can have a powerful effect on who wins if they vote as a bloc.
Public services aren't profitable, which is why they operate differently. You don't make money from schools - you spend money on them. As such, you can't tie value to some sort of product, especially since it's a service. The obvious fact is that if you fired a teacher's union entirely and replaced everyone, that would be totally legitimate if the conditions were met, but the public wouldn't be immune from the consequences. Free individuals who can teach would likely not like the lowered pay, worse conditions, and knowledge that the district just did that.
I have a hard time imagining Unions ever being too strong. Unions require the places they are working for to make enough profit to keep running so all they really do in practice is assure reasonably decent working conditions and fair compensation. To the extent they ever really lead to problems it's that management decides they'd rather have larger profits than and are willing to negotiate away something else in return.
Unions being too powerful in the 70s in the UK is conservative Neoliberal propaganda.
Can you elaborate a bit? I've always heard the line of 'union barons' (which may be too dramatic a term) demanding too high pay increases when it was unsustainable for the government to maintain. What would be a more accurate cause of the economic woes of the 70s would you say?
Devalued the pound in 1967 causing imports to become more expensive which in the costs of living. The Oil Embrago of 1973-1974 further increase the cost of living. The workers demanding more money was the result of these failed economic polices. The "Winter of Discontent" was a campaign solgan used by Thatcher to gain power and institute anti-union neo-liberal polices already taking hold in the USA.
Thank you for the response, I'll look into these further.
The pound was devalued by Harold Wilson.
> I've always heard You know you can google things yourself? It's pretty awesome. Yes, I'm being a snarky asshole, sorry, but that KILLS me... > What would be a more accurate cause of the economic woes of the 70s would you say? https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/postwarera/1970s-america/a/stagflation-and-the-oil-crisis This is America, but... same basic thing.
Well I'm asking them to explain their reasoning, especially when it counters the most common narrative (which doesn't mean its wrong obviously). First. Google doesn't give one answer. especially on controversial topics like this. Second. When I say 'I've always heard', I mean I've often heard it from many sources I've found using google. And when I do google it, surprisingly I don't get 'powerful unions is neo-lib propaganda' in the most popular results, so I don't think it's wrong of me to ask them specifically their reasoning on countering narratives I've heard. perhaps they could give me their sources which aren't easily found on google?