Union labor in the US is a very small part of the total - I think it is about 15% - but perhaps someone on FW has an accurate percentage.
We should look at Labor unions as they are rather than as they are supposed to be.
Their job is not to raise wages but to raise their own wages - which they have every right to do. However, this is often done indirectly at the expense of labor generally.
Simplest example is the obvious privilege (private law) - an import restriction. A corporation - say GM -lobbies for a law that keeps out foreign SUVs - say $1,000 on each imported car. Without the cheaper import competition, GM can raise its prices by $1,000 - which has to be paid by all Americans.
Well, obviously, this burden on close to 300 million Americans should be ended. But, that's not what the auto union is about. Their job is to get a slice of the action. To avoid "labor unrest" GM will make an accommodation with the Union and give them some of the action - perhaps a large piece of the action.
So, the union will oppose any removal of the tariff and will campaign, I suppose mostly among Democrats, for the continuation of the tariff.
"Fair Trade" is the name given to this mulcting of the people. It survives because the people who get the swag are few compared to the victims - victims who are, in most cases, utterly unaware of the robbery taking place (and may even support it).
The success of the major unions leads to demands for complete unionization. If some can do well - all will do better. However, this will become no more than everyone taking in everyone's washing. The unions who get the most loot will continue to lap up the gravy. Less powerful unions will continue to scratch for the crumbs.
Inflation (expansion of the money supply) is the way modern governments handle unrestrainable demand. The unions get higher wages, but price soar. A high cost of living can always be blamed on the exorbitant profits of corporations and politicians are off the hook.
Britain found herself in this position in the pre-Thatcher days. The country was the victim of secondary and tertiary strikes. Completely unconnected unions would "come out in sympathy" - supporting a striking union. It made proper production a farce.
(For an hilarious illustration of corporate venality and union stupidity in the UK, see Peter Sellers in "I'm all right, Jack".)
This situation became known as the "British disease" as worthwhile production became a rarity. I can't remember how many unionists were members of the Trades Union Congress, but the organization probably covered every worker in the country.
Thatcher apparently early intended to break the two major powers in the country. The "old boy network" - the lesser nobles, the country squires, and the others who owned Britain, and the unions who subverted British production. Both picked the pockets of the British, but only the unions fell to the Thatcher attack.
The ownership of Britain is still in the hands of a few. One remembers the surprise of Keith when Kevin Cahill published his book that revealed that about 6,000 landholders own two thirds of the country - and further have held tight to their land throughout the 20th century. Thatcher inevitably failed.
Perhaps the most poignant part of the union battles occurred when Thatcher was closing down uneconomic collieries. The coal miners always at the front of militant British unionism fought it to no avail.
Said one spokesman: "There will be no jobs for our kids if the mines are closed."
Ed, Brad - he was unhappy because his kids would not be able to go a mile under the earth and work in the confined space at the coal face - not altogether the safest place to be.
That is, perhaps, the saddest part of work in Britain. What alternative is there for those miners' sons if the pits are closed?
Yet, in the US and the UK no-one is asking, never mind answering, the question that Henry George posed more than a century ago.
"Why are people looking for jobs? Why aren't jobs looking for people?"
Harry
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Brad wrote:
Ed Weick wrote:It's not often that someone responds to his own posting, but after having sent it off the following paragraph struck me as being a little dumb because changing jobs in today's labour market is not that easy and the job you change to may be no better than the one you left.
Isn't it more accurate to say that the job you change to *may very well be worse than the one you left* -- and, again fine tuning: not the job you left, but the job that ceased to exist and which therefore contributes nothing to *anybody* any more?"Many people put in more that 37.5 hours and much of the work they do is tedious and demeaning. However, unlike the serf or slave, they can change jobs and, if they are unionized, can negotiate the conditions under which they work. That was less possible in earlier times."[snip] Aren't fewer and fewer workers unionized these days, at least in the USA? \brad mccormick
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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