Opposition to trade unions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (December 2006)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

Opposition to trade unions comes from a variety of groups in society and there are many different types of argument on which this opposition is based.

Political or ideological arguments against trade unionism have been advanced by Neo-liberals, Libertarians, and Conservatives, as well some schools of Nationalism, Socialism, Communism and Anarchism.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Political aspects of unions 2 Economic Effects 2.1 Unemployment 2.2 Harm to ununionised labour 2.3 Efficiency 2.4 Cost-push Inflation 3 Racist policies of the past 4 Government 5 Left critiques of trade unionism 6 References 7 External links 8 Notes

[edit] Political aspects of unions

A significant number of unions in the United States, including the UFCW — which is affiliated with the Change to Win Federation — and many unions in the AFL-CIO, openly endorse the Democratic Party, and have often endorsed the Democratic candidate. Thus union members that are politically conservative and/or Republican may believe that their interests are not recognized by these unions. Some individuals^{[who?][weasel words]} believe that unions focus too much on politics (and even Wal-Mart bashing^{[citation needed]}) and do not focus adequately on negotiating good collective bargaining agreements for their members.

Unions are sometimes accused of holding society to ransom by taking strike actions that result in the disruption of public services.^[1][2]

They increase wages by forming a group of people to provide a skilled service with companies that sign a contract that they may only "purchase" workers only from the group [i.e] union. The demand for the work is usually lower than the supply and therefore the contractor signatory can "hire" and "fire" at will. A contract is often entered into at the beginning of "apprenticeship."^{[citation needed]} This contract is binding and normally requires that if one does not work for the duration stated in the contract, one will owe the amount of the "training" received.

[edit] Economic Effects

[edit] Unemployment

Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winning economist and advocate of laissez-faire capitalism, argues that unionization produces higher wages at the expense of fewer jobs, and that, if some industries are unionized while others are not, wages will decline in non-unionized industries.^[3]

By raising the price of labour, the wage rate, above the equilibrium price, unemployment rises. This is because it is no longer worthwhile for businesses to employ those labourers whose work is worth less th