What’s collective bargaining, and why are they saying those things about it?
I’ve written recently about a bunch of polls where Americans were asked what they think about the “right” to collective bargaining for public service union workers. Yesterday I wrote, “I’d also love to have seen a quiz accompanying the poll with some questions on what respondents think collective bargaining is,” because I doubt very many know at all.
Well, as though in response, the WSJ has this article [hat tip: commenter “csimon”] attempting to educate us. Here’s an excerpt:
Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state””or even across states””can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.
In fact, labor unions were subject to U.S. antitrust laws in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was first applied in 1894 to the American Railway Union. However, organized labor managed to obtain exemption from federal antitrust laws in subsequent legislation, notably the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
Remarkably, labor unions are not only immune from antitrust laws but can also negotiate a “union shop,” which requires nonunion employees to join the union or pay nearly equivalent dues. Somehow, despite many attempts, organized labor has lacked the political power to repeal the key portion of the 1947 Taft Hartley Act that allowed states to pass right-to-work laws, which now prohibit the union shop in 22 states. From the standpoint of civil liberties, the individual right to work””without being forced to join a union or pay dues””has a much better claim than collective bargaining.
Here’s more:
This “compromise” [reducing wages but allowing collective bargaining for public employees to stand unchanged] leaves intact the structure of strong public-employee unions that helped to create the unsustainable fiscal situation; after all, the next governor may have less fiscal discipline. A long-run solution requires a change in structure, for example, by restricting collective bargaining for public employees and, to go further, by introducing a right-to-work law.
My guess is that, if most Americans knew what this was all about, they would be standing with the Governor of Wisconsin. But they don’t, and most of the MSM is probably dedicated to the proposition that they remain ignorant.
In fact, come to think of it, I wonder how many members of the press who write about collective bargaining have a clue themselves what it actually is?
[NOTE: The WSJ piece is written by Robert Barro, who is an economics professor at Harvard. Interesting, no?]
Collective bargaining is price fixing?
Barro is a pretty well-known libertarian – he did all of those devastating studies about the (lack of) Keynesian multipliers around the time Obama passed the stimulus. I’m pretty sure Regina Herzlinger – the anti-socialized-medicine health care economist – teaches at Harvard too. Hey, it’s hard to be ALL chaff.
With respect to unions, what often goes unmentioned in all of this “Hitler and Stalin hated unions” stuff is that, for a good long time, American unions were more like Hitler and Stalin than those who opposed them. David Bernstein (in “The Last Place of Redress”) and Paul Moreno (in “Black Americans and Organized Labor”) showed how the..ehem… “institutional racism” of unions has had lastingly detrimental effects on blacks, and in many ways still persists. (The sordid racism lacing those FDR labor laws is, or should be, the stuff of legend).
The sordid racism of labor unions; the Democrat pro-slavery party (in the 19th century); the fact that most of those who established Jim Crow laws and then opposed their elimination were Democrat (George Wallace, Bull Connor, etc.), and yet the black community is drawn to the Democrat party like an abused child is drawn to an abuser parent.
When the Teacher’s Union or any public sector union bargains with Democrat officials it should not be called collective bargaining. The taxpayer who pays the salaries of the union workers is not represented at that negotiation table. It should be called collaborative burglary.
MX,
So if they can’t be prosecuted under anti-trust provisions, let’s prosecute under RICO.
Weirdly enough the “union shop” was one of the things Margaret Thatcher did away with in the UK way back in the ’80’s, along with the full “closed shop”. I’d always assumed it was illegal in the US as she was alleged to just be mirroring US labor law at the time. Kinda strange to find you’ve still got it after all this time.
As has been noted before, there is a difference between private & public sector unions. Public service unions ‘negotiate’ with politicians and then in turn, via the union bosses, kick back part of their negotiated gains to those very same politicians as campaign donations. The taxpayers who pay the wages and benefits are not truly in on the negotiations, all they get is the bill.
IMO state public service workers should be subject to civil service codes drafted by their state’s legislature and signed in law by the governor, same goes for pubic service workers hired by municipalities, counties, townships, etc. The pertinent governing entity sets up the rules (civil service codes) and provides or does not provide pension and/or insurance benefits as they see fit. If public service workers don’t like what they are offered they have the freedom to look elsewhere for work just like the rest of us.
Thanks for this post, Neo. I really did not understand the whole notion of collective bargaining until now. The term now makes sense, and certainly I can now see why it would be a target for antitrust legislation.
A few posts ago, I wondered about the movie, “A Beautiful Mind,” and suspected more was going on than the surface emotional feel good success story. The reason: Nash, the beloved schizophrenic, made his fundamental discovery while in a pool hall and competing for the attentions of available women. Adam Smith was wrong, Nash concluded. Cooperation, not competition applies in a maximum enjoyment of “goods.” But what if “they” won’t cooperate?
In justifying a closed shop, the idea of “free riders” is used. For me, it represents the always lurking condition of complexity. A free rider would be one who enjoys the benefits of union results but didn’t put in any personal cost. If you look at the Wikipedia “free rider problem” you’ll see a “Nash Equilibrium” solution which ultimately demands coercive action to bind individuals into a unit, ie., collectivization. Or to say it as kolnai did, “for a good long time, American unions were more like Hitler and Stalin than those who opposed them.” I think the statement still applies. It has to. As a matter of fact, more so now than then!
It works on paper (socialism) but it has never worked out in real life. Never.
And yet, even if socialism (100% unionization) has never worked, our country surely has reaped benefits from unions. Or has it? Why is that the intellectual arguments boost unions but that history shows where ever union force becomes too pervasive, freedom and prosperity are lost.
But the bozos (those who think they know) always seem to prevail. I wonder what bulwark is best for beating the bozos?
As i explained in the other thread, its legal blackmail. legal because if done this way, the state will not prosecute and has in effect made it legal.
if unions were only one company organizations, with no intra union linkage into a union collective, then the union would be more symbiotic having to share the same fate as the symbiont he is parasitically attacking.
what you see is that they are or have to be allowed in a state in which people are not free. if we were free, we would be free all to work and do what we wanted, and so there would be no ‘progressive tax’, no minimum wage, and tons of other things.
why do i bring this up?
because we got here by discussing things in isolation. they are new parts in a system
which operates under chaos mathematical principals NOT more normal easy principals like linear. heck we cant handle non linear dynamical known math, let alone chaos based self organizing system with every piece of matter computing, and beings who are also independent agents. that is, independent of control by others generally, and independent of a fixed set of laws or rules they follow causationally like matter.
a union that is limited to a company is different than unions within a whole domain of work, which are different than unions which link up domains, and so on.
whatever law that applied to the limited version in which directly interested parties all negotiate, technically doesn’t apply to these other entities as they are not the same, only bear the same label and are close enough in concept that we might not notice that scale and other salient differences make them different.
that by calling these other structures by the same name, they got to apply the same laws which are unsuitable for these new beings.
as is also the case with the new meta charities, and so forth, where one organization is actually the coordinating soviet of 200 other organizations under it.
the in shop protest is what we all think is fair in unions. that a group of people who dont like things or want things improved can petition their boss and should not fear reprisals for trying to make things better in a positive way, and not a destructive one sided way (that goes for the boss too).
but the spanning organizations, are different because the heads or leaders of such, are not part of the people who are the interested parties in the situation. when the company closes, they work for another part of the union at another location. this is a serious conflict of interest and a certain structural difference between forms. if it had not had the same label, a different one would be better.
a union of union multiplies this effect AND again, has other structural differences, and so, other powers that the others dont have.
these powers are emergent from these structural changes. that is, when they change the level or connection, they gain new qualities and powers, but since their name is the same, they are governed by rules that are intended for another structure. that is, one should not be able to change oneself into something completely different one facet at a time, yet not change the name, so that laws are no longer suitable or applicable.
when its a union of unions, you now have a power to affect business as a unit and whole. you have a power entity that has not earned or been delegated by the people its power to manipulate the markets by coordinating pressure arbitrarily with little regard for the people who now have no representation, other than an appearance under an old label.
the protests and such with all the unions supporting each other is evidence of this illegal power assembled through coordination and mislabeling.
when they break apart and leave, they are no more apart than when they were there in one place.
the interests of the larger structure are the interests of the leader and what they want with the economy and how they can use that for other power, these are so far removed from the plight of the workers that they no longer are represented, and as such, the union is not a union any more either.
too bad i cant word this better, maybe there is a legal angle here, then again, maybe not.
aggregating the power of many organizations or groups is a different entity, and not an extension of the others, but rather makes the others an extension of itself. It is not subject to the same rules since its not subject to the punishment, its extremities are.
i guess thats another way to put it…
It makes sense that most people would not know what collective bargaining is- only 7% of the private sector is unionized and it has been that way for some time. A generation or two ago, someone’s dad or uncle would have been part of a union.
Unions once made sense; if capital can organize, why can’t labor, after all? And there were many abuses and few laws, etc, and etc. It is an accident of legal history that the US is an “employment at will” nation, and unions filled a lot of gaps there. But they no longer make sense in our current environment. And as has been written about at length, never belonged in the public sector. As I have patiently explained to my sibling, who is in a public sector union- you can have statutory employee rights without collective bargaining/unions. That should be the trade-off that is made here for the states that have unions.
But the bozos (those who think they know) always seem to prevail. I wonder what bulwark is best for beating the bozos?
Judeo Christian religion, ergo Islam can stay, Buddhism can stay…
Why?
Because in that world view, we each, no matter how broken, weak, or unfit, are special as individuals. it was this permeating truth that went all through society to the point that even the atheists thought that it was our natural state, not religious guidance made real. We now are kind of living on a kind of moral momentum as even the boomers cant move as fast as their grand kids (so hurrying them out is the next thing)
Whether god exists or not, or even exists and couldn’t care less about a bible, or whatever you want to posit. it doesn’t matter in that accidental, genius, idiocy that luck made right, books and way that came from that moved all of man forward from a kind of slow meandering and gave for the first time freedom back that he had not had since domestication held him to a spot long.
the idea that everything around us was a work, gave us the idea to study that work, to figure out how it works, as a way to get closer to god, that gave us science. it was the purpose that made it financially feasible to just look for no better reason than to know (know what? know god).
again, whether he or she, it or them, exist, or not, doesn’t change those facts of what was the operand behind the whole of it.
the over throwing of aristocracy also came from its ethic, which brought prosperity and wealth outside of the subsistence levels controlled and meted out by the aristocracy. each man then was free to spend his time on industry, and savings, and educated by church universities, have equal command of his faculties denied him by prior aristocratic (2) class societies.
to think that in 10k years we went from roving violent bands that kept moving, and raided each other, and even ate each other.
to generally living peacefully in numbers exceeding 8 million in one city. choose what kind of life we would like to try to have, and just have an incredible living standard even if your very poor. i know, i grew up poor.
last night on the way home i picked up a item from the bakery. it was of blueberries and raspberries, and hand mixed whip cream, on a tiny pie crust. a tart..
there was a time when almost no one had seen such things but a few wealthy people who got together to screw with each other, and in boredom sometimes did heinous things.
the thought that at a whim i could wander into a store, it would hand me for what is a pittance the snack of a king.
tonight my wife did her nails with polish. how odd that she could wear the decoration of Chinese emperors, and it cost less than a few dollars.
it wasnt but a very short while ago that my wife and i would never have even been able to meet, let alone by accident. And then a few years later, walk up a ramp, and in 24 hours visit the rest of the family literally on the other side of the planet.
and all of that, was made mostly by men of honor and a desire to make a better world with their bare hands, and the vast majority of them on some level either believed, half believed, or even not believed but benefited from the large number that did, and behaved with conscious effort not to be what we were before.
the bible told man to subdue the earth… the greenies go nuts on that, but all that means is that you make homes, you farm, you create science, you invent genetics, you fight desease, you eventually earn enough that you can spend on the luxury of being green (which cant be had by force).
as brutal as we are, we are incredibly good when left to our own, and not commanded.
no half baked simplification of living which desires to manipulate and thinks that stunting everyone will set them free, will never work.
for us it will suck, but it will not last, and will fall,and will end up going again. because that which they want to control dies when controlled.
when controlled it moves in the wrong directions and is willing to do things that without it, there is no purpose to. (the corner bodega has little market for biological weapons, neither does most of the rest of the world. consider who does)
no other theology, or ideology (same thing), ever laid it out better and left room for everyone else too. rocky beginning in more primitive times, yes. but given the result compared to what others have done in more enlightened modern times, there is no comparison.
if capital can organize, why can’t labor, after all?
you want my opinion, i think the same i said about unions applied to meta corporations who are above and have hundreds of corporations as part of it.
thats a different entity, not just a business of business… its interests are not that of the extremities, and too, its power over a swath of the market is tempting and concentrated to make games too easy.
companies should be companies. they can be large, and have lines, but again, that’s different than these other things.
this would also ‘spread the wealth around’ in a different way as it would flatten the structure just a bit…
maybe its a silly angle… at least i know its an angle or perspective, and needs a heck of a bigger look than blog rambling… 🙂
How about “pat-a-cake?”
Collective bargaining = labor cartel.
Artfldgr @9:28pm:
Periodically you wax wonderfully eloquent. Good one!
I’m a lurker on this site (and have been for years), but I had to post – Artfldgr, you’ve outdone yourself tonight. No endless lines of quotes and links (which are, granted, very useful but often also very off-putting), just eloquent and insightful thoughts that help put the issues discussed into a unique perspective. Thank you very much.
And, of course – thank to Neo for one of the gems of the internet. This site has proved more and more valuable over the years, and is one I use to help others see that their preconceptions are not only present but dangerous to us all. You’ve changed more minds than you know.
“”Because in that world view, we each, no matter how broken, weak, or unfit, are special as individuals.””
Artfldgr
Unions operate as crushers of the individual. Hang around somebody immersed in that life and you’ll see it. They have no concept that innovative bold steps and genius is nearly impossible to come from a compromising collective, but rests in the minds of individuals in nourishing environments. An epiphany that has you thanking God for inequality among people.
I though some people here might be interested in the results of collective bargaining between the WI Teacher’s Union and the other side of the table. Here is a link to a WSJ article the explains the basics. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703408604576164290717724956.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Needless to say there is more. The author glosses over the fact that the union sponsors the health care. What that means is the teacher’s union owns the health care company and has bargained for the privilege of selecting the provider. The state could save $63 million dollars by rolling the teachers into the state program with no loss of benefits.
There is another program called teacher emeritus. They have to meet certain requirements, age and length of service to apply. If accepted, after they retire they get 20% of their highest salary for 2 weeks work. I could not find a current link explaining the program to post.
The US Dept of Education reports that 2/3 of WI 8th grade students do not read to grade level. But remember, ” It’s for the children.”
This benefit information is only being discovered now because of blogs like Neo and others. The MSM has been complicit by not reporting what is public information.
Thanks for the VERY kind words…
we are so great as a species BECAUSE we are not homogeneous like all the others.
we are a social competitive species in which our differences allow us to basically grow fingers that go very deeply into all kinds of specialties.
Our differences allow us to not see a problem in only one way, and to gain the advantage of many variances, many views, one only needs to be right, as we can accept merit.
the problem with the homogeneity of species, is that by doing, you get everyone responding almost the same way, and moving forward, and seeing things differently, AND supporting the myriad of boring things outside that, that make up day to day living, are all possible because of our lack of similarity.
once man reaches homogeneity, the first pandemic virus will wipe us out, as there would not be enough variance in health, reaction, knowledge, choice of behavior, and more to find the niche that makes it through.
but then again… that makes it moot…
http://www.ionainstitute.ie/index.php?id=1336
Christianity the reason for West’s success, say the Chinese
@ MX The MSM has been complicit by not reporting what is public information.
Yup yup.
Purpose: Help the Democrats & hurt the Republicans.
Means: Tell people what you want them to know, and don’t tell them what you don’t want them to know, so they will (continue to) vote for Democrats.
gs;
Yes, collective bargaining is price fixing.
It’s easy to see how. Just imagine if the various entities, people and/or businesses, that supply you with goods and services decided to get together and present you with collective bargaining:
“gs, the supermarkets of your region collectively propose that your price for apples this year will be 2.99 a pound, or 4.99 if you buy them on a weekend. You have no right to shop around, or seek apples from other sources, you either bargain with all of us as a group, or no apples for you.”
Wouldn’t that be price fixing?
Wouldn’t that be price fixing?
yes
but the method TO price fix is collective
ie collusion…
we used to think collusion was bad..
but then we started calling it collective, and it was good