Guest Post by John Stossel
Monday is Labor Day. Will you celebrate unions?
The media does. “Unions are cool again,” reports CBS News. They suggest unionization is booming.
“Reporters” practically cheered when a Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, became the first Starbucks to unionize. “A big symbolic win for labor,” The New York Times called it.
Since then, more than 180 Starbucks voted to unionize, and 300 filed for union elections.
Starbucks already offers better benefits than many companies: health benefits, even for part-time workers, free college tuition, maternity leave and more. Their minimum wage is $17/hour. But activists want more.
Apple Store employees and Google workers are also starting unionization efforts. In the first half of 2022, union election petitions increased by 57%.
They have political support. President Joe Biden promised he’d be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen,” and he probably has been. He supports the PRO Act, which would override state right-to-work laws and fine employers that fire workers for trying to unionize.
The Washington Post claims there is a “wave of labor activism sweeping the country.”
But despite all political support and media hype, unionization is down.
Unionization did increase during the pandemic but fell as the pandemic waned. In 2021, 15.8 million workers were represented by a union, a decline of half a million since 2019.
There are many reasons.
The Janus Supreme Court decision in 2018 declared it unconstitutional to force government workers to pay union dues. Now 28 states no longer force any workers to pay union dues. That’s a good thing. No one should be forced to join groups they don’t want to join.
In 1973, when I first went to work for CBS, I was forced to join AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to pay dues to a union that didn’t appear to do much, but I had no choice.
At work, I saw how union rules routinely slowed work down — sometimes in ridiculous ways. I couldn’t just press a button and watch a video. I had to find a union editor and ask him to press the button.
One reason Fox News grew faster than CBS, NBC and ABC’s news operations is that non-union Fox is more flexible. They are able to try new things. They didn’t have to obey all the stupid rules.
This is another reason why the number of union workers has declined. Union rules limit their employers’ ability to change, adapt and grow.
Non-union Toyota and Honda outgrew unionized companies like General Motors. They hired more people, created more jobs. That was good for labor, just not unionized labor.
Unionization helps some. But it hurts more.
Some GM workers got higher pay and more time off. But lots of potential workers never got a chance. Toyota and Honda helped more people simply by growing faster.
Today activists claim unions built the middle class. Without unions, they say, there would be no weekend and no eight-hour day.
But that’s not true.
Workers’ lives improved in America mostly because of competition, not union rules. Competition is what does the most for workers.
In 1914, Henry Ford doubled his employees’ wages to $5 a day and cut their workday to eight hours. People claim he was forced to do it by union pressure. That’s a myth. He did it because his company had high turnover. Raising wages helped him keep good workers.
Free market competition forces everyone to do better. What workers need is not a union’s rigid rules, but competition.
Today there’s lots of competition for workers. It’s driven companies like Costco to offer a $17-an-hour starting wage.
Unions help some, but a free market helps more.
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Good woman. Good man. Kid in amidships passing in the flight. Labor Day. Peaches. Pie.
Collectivist pietism? No bargain, that.
will have to watch
Unions suck. I know because I was in one of the biggest ones in the country. They are a socialist construct that teaches the workers to do as little as possible to get their paycheck. Unions incentivize the slackers while penalizing the productive workers. If you really want to piss off your union brothers, all you need to do is put in a hard days work. They will hate your guts and do everything they can to get you fired.
“America will never be a socialist country.”
-Dumbo
I was a manager in an old production plant with multiple unions. All the typical comments about Union and Management are in some way are true.
The one thing that stood out to me was 80-90% of union employees and managemen supervisors just want to come work, do a good job, get along with each other, and go home. Appreciate recognition for doing good work!
10% of the population causes 90% of the problems. Guess where all the energy (and drama) is spent?
Tomorrow is labor day?
I need to stop drinking.
A day w/o labor in it is a day w/o (fill it in) …..
…another baby?
Or lay off the gummies.
ALL HAIL THREE of the MOST SUCCESSFUL UNIONS OF ALL TIME!
CONgress. blue cross. blue shield.
I have entertained the thought that Building Engineers in Texas ought to unionize just because we are continuously fucked year to year, and the trade has become cheapened by the ever expanding influx of cheap beaner labor flooding into Texas, Thanks you very much you fucking democrat and Rino voters!! Now to be fair, Texas is a free state, and union membership is not a requirement to work here, but the janitorial staff are pretty much unionized and they have some clout…after all, the trash must be emptied….and…. skyscrapers need to have functional cooling, electrical, plumbing and fire control systems…am I right?
Building Engineers should maybe adapt their tactics.
A little sad Texas humor:
Q: What is your opinion of Roe vs Wade??
A: It is a decision every illegal invader must make when crossing the Rio Grande.
My baby brother was murdered in Harris County. I hate that place. Fuck Houston..
The ever escalating property taxes are going to run me out.
No, never have. and I will not in the future. If the so-called “Labor Day” had any honesty about it, there would be no taxes against those who trade their labor for wages.
So, that’s about as far as my reading of this piece would allow w/o projectile vomiting.
I guess I’m wrong, but I thought that peonage was outlawed by Congress in 1867.
As soon as the “New Deal”was ratified in the last century,collectivism was codified in American law, and Repugnant to the Constitution!Which is to protect INDIVIDUAL liberties,not destroy them as collectivism MUST destroy them!……I need more coffee…..
We have one very strong union shop in our town. Last month a new woman hire was raped in a dark room during second shift.
The cops asked if she knew who did it, she said it was the union steward, they asked how she knew since the room was dark and she couldn’t see a face.
She said she knew it was the union steward because she had to do all the work.
It’s not that no one wants to work anymore no one wants to hire. Whenever I’ve been applying to jobs recently no one even gives me a call back and if they do I get ghosted after the phone interview. And then 3 weeks later I get a rejection. But then I see the same job go up again urgently hiring with my exact qualifications. I don’t know what’s going on
Unions, like government, have always beed a cesspool of corruption, unimaginable waste, drones and no merit.
In 1988 I had to join the Painters union, I had to go to painters school once a week, 100% my cost along with losing a days pay. Our union disbanded around 1995 and the only painters unions in the state are in Detroit.
I have two friends that run the only local trade union shops, they both owe millions to the pension fund, and this money they admit will never be paid.
We do facility painting for the County, Hospitals and many schools. It’s astounding how many new employees are hired as more and more drones simply don’t do their jobs, can’t be terminated, and demand more help.
Rinse and repeat, down the drain we go……
I was found guilty by the NLRB of unfair unfair labor practices.
Just saying.