I’ve never been much of a fan of labor unions, maybe because both my grandfathers were small businessmen and my dad ended up as a fairly senior executive at an electrical manufacturing corporation.
It seems to me that labor unions are reactive. They grow their membership when the workers get screwed: by the market or by the government. For instance, a big growth era for unions in the US was in the post-civil war period. And guess what was happening then: Deflation, as the US government got the dollar back to the pre-civil war gold price after inflating during the war. That reduced wages and the workers didn’t like it.
Then there was the Great Depression, when corporations were just trying to stay alive. But that meant wage cuts, and the workers didn’t like that. So they formed unions and went on strike.
Today the workers are upset because of the inflation of the COVID era. They want to “catch up.”
Can’t say I blame the workers for being upset, but I’m a market absolutist. The market is the market, whether you like it or not, and everyone from gubmints to corporations to investors to workers have to get with the program. Oh, you can fight the market, you can abolish the market, you can bully the market, you can warp the market, but in the end you lose. Because the market is a social network by which humans negotiate prices with each other, for everything. Really, it’s a bloody miracle, and it don’t get no respect.
And the trouble is that when a union succeeds, its operations amount to a looting of the company, and that doesn’t help the workers, long-term. Kinda like a government.
So now we come to the US auto workers union, the United Auto Workers, striking for more pay. No wonder, because the money printer go brrr of the COVID era has walloped their wages. They are also upset about the transition to EVs, because there is less work for auto workers on electric vehicles, and the auto companies feel they have to reduce wages in order to compete with the Chinese.
See, I think that the auto workers in the US would have done much better long term without a union. The reason that German cars and Japanese cars and Korean cars do so well in the US is that the US automakers priced themselves out of the market, partly because of the corporations becoming “mature” and not quite as quick on their feet as in the dawn of the automobile, and partly because of the unions. But the other reason is that the workers don’t want to change with the times. They want their wages and they want their pensions and they don’t want to have to change with the times. Hey, humans are like that!
Unfortunately, if you resist the market you may benefit short-term but in the long term you lose. Yeah, I know, in the long-term we are all dead.
Now I think that our noble lords should teach us, starting in school, that there is no free lunch. We must all adjust to the market, because the only alternative to prices is force, and force is great when we get to do the forcing, but not so good when we are being forced.
But the noble lords don’t do that, and the reason is politics. If someone is angry, because the market has turned against them, your average politician will egg them on: “yeah, you was robbed! And I will protect you!” That’s how the auto workers got to dominate their employers and ossify them and make them less and less competitive.
But now the politicians are chasing the fantasy of green energy, because saving the planet. An the auto workers are getting hung out to dry. These are the Democratic politicians that 50 years ago were the fervent supporters of the workers. Today, not so much.
Do’t put your trust in a politician. Because in the end he will betray you.