Thread on Unions....

[@SkitchP]

hilarious thread

I'd like to hear your take on unions, friend.

Spoiler: show

i really love this GIF

[simple schoolboy]

Management and the unions have settled the BART strike. Management gets more flexibility on work rules while the union is still in charge of safety related rules. I'd like to hear Stips take on this as he is more hip on the labor side of things. Hopefully by Tuesday afternoon things are back to normal, not that it will help commuters until Wednesday.

[stip]

I haven't seen anything on the news sites I frequent yet. I'll try and find some details. Again I only tend to look into this strike when this thread requires it



The risk of a strike like this, especially over a non-obvious (which is not the same thing as unimportant) target is this:

Spoiler: show

So far, local labor organizations appear to be standing firm behind BART's unions. "Today's strike was not an outcome workers wanted. But it was the only outcome management would allow," Pulaski said in a statement Friday. "The California labor movement will continue to support BART workers in their fight for a fair contract."

An executive with a Bay Area union local said: "I haven't heard of other unions pulling back their support. But the situation definitely raises issues of how unions are being perceived by the public. To many we're just another special-interest group."

Shaiken added: "In the 1950s, when unions went on strike and gained something, everybody cheered, including nonunion people, because that meant they could gain things too. Now it's turned on its head. Unions want something and the reaction is, 'What about us?' "

Unions are at a disadvantage in a declining economy/era of horrific inequality because improved working conditions/benefits/wages, etc are seen as a zero sum game. How come you assholes get that and I don't.

on the other hand, the public's perception of unions has been rising. They got a lot of sympathy in Wisconsin, and from the fast food strikes. So we'll see if this ends up coming across as an example of one 'greedy' union, or unions as unions.

[Electromatic]

Although they aren't a real Union I do side with football players from Grambling University refusing to play because of unsafe, unfair conditions. That said the "company" they play for has lost a lot of its funding, and Grambling Universities mission is education not marketing so they have allowed facilities and equipment to become unsafe. The players were right to refuse to play.

I want employees or "labor" to have a seat at the table. Maybe one problem with the typical adversarial relationship is that labor often doesn't know what the financial situation of the company is as with the last NFL lockout. The owners absolutely bullied themselves a better deal.

That said, as with the BART strike, my opinion of the union is not, that they are greedy, but that they are out of touch with reality quite a bit. Jobs change, technology changes, jobs become obsolete. I feel like many Unions have resisted changing and adapting to changing realities of business while others do a better job of training employees and moving forward.

Still not sure why the relationship between employer and employee needs to be adversarial.

[stip]

Although they aren't a real Union I do side with football players from Grambling University refusing to play because of unsafe, unfair conditions. That said the "company" they play for has lost a lot of its funding, and Grambling Universities mission is education not marketing so they have allowed facilities and equipment to become unsafe. The players were right to refuse to play.

I want employees or "labor" to have a seat at the table. Maybe one problem with the typical adversarial relationship is that labor often doesn't know what the financial situation of the company is as with the last NFL lockout. The owners absolutely bullied themselves a better deal.

That said, as with the BART strike, my opinion of the union is not, that they are greedy, but that they are out of touch with reality quite a bit. Jobs change, technology changes, jobs become obsolete. I feel like many Unions have resisted changing and adapting to changing realities of business while others do a better job of training employees and moving forward.

Still not sure why the relationship between employer and employee needs to be adversarial.

This is absolutely true.

As someone who is likely going to be president of a unionized workforce in a not for profit, I do not have an adversarial view of our relationship as workers vis a vis the larger institution. I see our union as representing the interests and perspective of the faculty in the larger discussion about the health of the college community as a whole. And I get along really well with our president and provost (I don't really know the CFO that well. Having said that, there are certainly elements in our union (older faculty, especially) that view this relationship as fundamentally adversarial, and at points in our history it clearly was. It's not surprising to see that sticking with people.

Beyond that, even at a not for profit organization like this, there are fundamental differences of perspective. The board of directors, for instance, will find the idea of using adjunct faculty immensely appealing, since paying adjuncts to teach my course load would cost the school half my salary, plus no benefits. And so from that perspective it makes sense. On the other hand, adjunct faculty and the movement towards them are a drag on higher education, and it is difficult for some people at the top to understand why (boards of directors at colleges RARELY have any background in education). And if we did not have a union it would be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to push back against this trend.

That's related to a larger fight that people tend to miss in these struggles. Every municipality in the country watched the BART fight. And if labor backed down it signals to everyone that labor is weak, that you should push back against it, that management can do what it wants. I agree that it is unfortunate that something like negotiating a regional contract should have that as its backdrop, but it's true nevertheless. I wonder if there would have been a strike if not for Scott Walker.

[---]

hilarious thread

I'd like to hear your take on unions, friend.

Okay, probably later. But only because you are one of my two favorite people.

[Green Habit]

hilarious thread

I'd like to hear your take on unions, friend.

Okay, probably later. But only because you are one of my two favorite people.

[---]

-Unions cartelize labor and, in general, decrease social welfare. Like any other cartel, the effect is to distort market structures such that rents - most obviously in the form of wages, but also in the form of non-wage components of firms' cost curves - accrue to the cartel's members and organizers. The costs, then, are borne by every laborer not in the union, consumers (to whom the higher firm costs will be passed, depending on the elasticity of demand for the firm's output), and the firm's capital structure (more on this next). It's no small source of irony that union agitators couch their arguments in the rhetoric of "worker equality," given that a primary consequence of unionization is to create inequalities amongst classes of workers - both within and without of a particular labor union - that did not and would not exist otherwise.

-The labor market models used to analyze the effects of unionization typically diverge from perfect competition (read: monopsony). The argument goes that because there are fewer firms demanding labor, their bargaining power increases proportionally (and thus, labor's bargaining power decreases proportionally). It's a bad argument, but let's just assume it's true: employers extract rents from current and prospective laborers by offering comparatively lower wages (MP<MR), and unions are a means by which labor can recoup some proportion of appropriated rents by capturing a share of firm profits (that is, the only consequence of labor cartelization in this instance is a reduction in the firm's profit margin). And let's say that today, at t=0, unions are successful in bargaining with monopsonistic firm X, wages now equal marginal revenue, and the firm is left with a smaller profit than in t= -1.

So, given this story, at t=0 the labor union is able to temporarily recoup extracted rents at the cost of firm profitability. Does anyone think that this is the end of the story, that producers won't respond to t=0's smaller profit margins? Of course they will. The consequences of the change in the capital/labor structure are realized in subsequent periods, at t=1, t=2, t=3, etc as firms adjust strategies and business practices to reflect the new wage structure. The interaction between suppliers and demanders of labor is a repeated game, as is the firm's actual production process. Independent of labor market (and output market) structures, producers will always, always, always seek to externalize costs, such that imperfect models of labor markets are less relevant to analysis than is the timing and method of cost externalization. The costs of collective bargaining will be borne exclusively by the firm/shareholders only at t=0, and in all periods subsequent some other constituent will bear the costs, with poor consumers, unskilled laborers, and overseas labor competition bearing disproportionate burdens.

-Firm-specific unions/workers' associations are far less harmful (and in some cases welfare enhancing) than are industry-wide and public sector unions.

-Want to plug this paper because a) it's topical, and b) much of the economic thought I've been consuming lately consists of the intersection between evolutionary biology and applied microeconomics/game theory.

[simple schoolboy]

I suppose it is possible that the BART union will reject the deal, as they have yet to vote on it. However, the only thing I can figure is that the unfortunate incident this past weekend gave some cover to their claim of working for safety. It appears that they caved on work rules, which I can only guess is because they are cognizant of public opinion.

These guys have to contribute to their pensions, sure, but that is covered by their employer. Outside of that, they get a 12 percent raise over 5 years. Oh, and have to pay $132 vs. $92 per month for heathcare. The union won hands down. The only real difference is ridiculous OT rules and having to use computers.

I appreciate Stips defense of unions in general, but it IS a zero sum game when it comes to public sector unions.

[stip]

-Unions cartelize labor and, in general, decrease social welfare. Like any other cartel, the effect is to distort market structures such that rents - most obviously in the form of wages, but also in the form of non-wage components of firms' cost curves - accrue to the cartel's members and organizers. The costs, then, are borne by every laborer not in the union, consumers (to whom the higher firm costs will be passed, depending on the elasticity of demand for the firm's output), and the firm's capital structure (more on this next). It's no small source of irony that union agitators couch their arguments in the rhetoric of "worker equality," given that a primary consequence of unionization is to create inequalities amongst classes of workers - both within and without of a particular labor union - that did not and would not exist otherwise.

-The labor market models used to analyze the effects of unionization typically diverge from perfect competition (read: monopsony). The argument goes that because there are fewer firms demanding labor, their bargaining power increases proportionally (and thus, labor's bargaining power decreases proportionally). It's a bad argument, but let's just assume it's true: employers extract rents from current and prospective laborers by offering comparatively lower wages (MP<MR), and unions are a means by which labor can recoup some proportion of appropriated rents by capturing a share of firm profits (that is, the only consequence of labor cartelization in this instance is a reduction in the firm's profit margin). And let's say that today, at t=0, unions are successful in bargaining with monopsonistic firm X, wages now equal marginal revenue, and the firm is left with a smaller profit than in t= -1.

So, given this story, at t=0 the labor union is able to temporarily recoup extracted rents at the cost of firm profitability. Does anyone think that this is the end of the story, that producers won't respond to t=0's smaller profit margins? Of course they will. The consequences of the change in the capital/labor structure are realized in subsequent periods, at t=1, t=2, t=3, etc as firms adjust strategies and business practices to reflect the new wage structure. The interaction between suppliers and demanders of labor is a repeated game, as is the firm's actual production process. Independent of labor market (and output market) structures, producers will always, always, always seek to externalize costs, such that imperfect models of labor markets are less relevant to analysis than is the timing and method of cost externalization. The costs of collective bargaining will be borne exclusively by the firm/shareholders only at t=0, and in all periods subsequent some other constituent will bear the costs, with poor consumers, unskilled laborers, and overseas labor competition bearing disproportionate burdens.

-Firm-specific unions/workers' associations are far less harmful (and in some cases welfare enhancing) than are industry-wide and public sector unions.

-Want to plug this paper because a) it's topical, and b) much of the economic thought I've been consuming lately consists of the intersection between evolutionary biology and applied microeconomics/game theory.

what sorts of nonmodeled/game theoretic data do you have to back up the point that unions harm workers/the public at large? I am thinking in terms of regional standards of living, wages, etc. Something tangible.

[stip]

I suppose it is possible that the BART union will reject the deal, as they have yet to vote on it. However, the only thing I can figure is that the unfortunate incident this past weekend gave some cover to their claim of working for safety. It appears that they caved on work rules, which I can only guess is because they are cognizant of public opinion.

These guys have to contribute to their pensions, sure, but that is covered by their employer. Outside of that, they get a 12 percent raise over 5 years. Oh, and have to pay $132 vs. $92 per month for heathcare. The union won hands down. The only real difference is ridiculous OT rules and having to use computers.

I appreciate Stips defense of unions in general, but it IS a zero sum game when it comes to public sector unions.

i suppose it is, but a zero sum game's normative impact can be offset by questions of justness or fairness which may not apply here. Again, my defense is pretty general here. I haven't followed the BART case, and the fact that I am not innundated with information about it from my usual haunts may mean that this is just a case of a greedy union-although this begs the question why are we so hostile to greed from workers, but not from other sectors of the economy. It may not. We'll see if there is more chatter after the vote.

[Green Habit]

-Unions cartelize labor and, in general, decrease social welfare. Like any other cartel, the effect is to distort market structures such that rents - most obviously in the form of wages, but also in the form of non-wage components of firms' cost curves - accrue to the cartel's members and organizers. The costs, then, are borne by every laborer not in the union, consumers (to whom the higher firm costs will be passed, depending on the elasticity of demand for the firm's output), and the firm's capital structure (more on this next). It's no small source of irony that union agitators couch their arguments in the rhetoric of "worker equality," given that a primary consequence of unionization is to create inequalities amongst classes of workers - both within and without of a particular labor union - that did not and would not exist otherwise.

-The labor market models used to analyze the effects of unionization typically diverge from perfect competition (read: monopsony). The argument goes that because there are fewer firms demanding labor, their bargaining power increases proportionally (and thus, labor's bargaining power decreases proportionally). It's a bad argument, but let's just assume it's true: employers extract rents from current and prospective laborers by offering comparatively lower wages (MP<MR), and unions are a means by which labor can recoup some proportion of appropriated rents by capturing a share of firm profits (that is, the only consequence of labor cartelization in this instance is a reduction in the firm's profit margin). And let's say that today, at t=0, unions are successful in bargaining with monopsonistic firm X, wages now equal marginal revenue, and the firm is left with a smaller profit than in t= -1.

So, given this story, at t=0 the labor union is able to temporarily recoup extracted rents at the cost of firm profitability. Does anyone think that this is the end of the story, that producers won't respond to t=0's smaller profit margins? Of course they will. The consequences of the change in the capital/labor structure are realized in subsequent periods, at t=1, t=2, t=3, etc as firms adjust strategies and business practices to reflect the new wage structure. The interaction between suppliers and demanders of labor is a repeated game, as is the firm's actual production process. Independent of labor market (and output market) structures, producers will always, always, always seek to externalize costs, such that imperfect models of labor markets are less relevant to analysis than is the timing and method of cost externalization. The costs of collective bargaining will be borne exclusively by the firm/shareholders only at t=0, and in all periods subsequent some other constituent will bear the costs, with poor consumers, unskilled laborers, and overseas labor competition bearing disproportionate burdens.

-Firm-specific unions/workers' associations are far less harmful (and in some cases welfare enhancing) than are industry-wide and public sector unions.

-Want to plug this paper because a) it's topical, and b) much of the economic thought I've been consuming lately consists of the intersection between evolutionary biology and applied microeconomics/game theory.

I figured the cartelization argument would come up, and I don't think anyone would dispute that, including the unions themselves. However, it may be irrelevant due to the fact that human labor is very unique compared to other goods. I mean, a carbon rod doesn't care about much other than getting parades and vacuous awards because, well, it's inanimate. Humans, on the other hand, care about a hell of a lot of other things besides just being a cog in the workforce, and those cares may mean that we sustain a bit of pure economic cost in order to cater to them.

Also, isn't some degree of cartelization necessary to prevent a prisoner's dilemma like race to the bottom? This is why I found it odd when you called firm-specific unions less harmful. It seems to me that, aside from some odd market like professional sports, they wouldn't even be able to exist in the first place.

[Norah]

I love you so much.

[elliseamos]

i'm with stip on this one. i'm comfortable with the idea that collective bargaining should be greedy, because those they're bargaining with are greedy in their own right.

[---]

what sorts of nonmodeled/game theoretic data do you have to back up the point that unions harm workers/the public at large? I am thinking in terms of regional standards of living, wages, etc. Something tangible.

The paper linked above provides data that smaller scale/less extractive unions are those that are most likely to survive. Not aware of any evolutionary game theory papers that link union practices/structures to outcomes (regional standards of living, wages, etc).

[stip]

what sorts of nonmodeled/game theoretic data do you have to back up the point that unions harm workers/the public at large? I am thinking in terms of regional standards of living, wages, etc. Something tangible.

The paper linked above provides data that smaller scale/less extractive unions are those that are most likely to survive. Not aware of any evolutionary game theory papers that link union practices/structures to outcomes (regional standards of living, wages, etc).

What about sources of data that don't come from evolutionary game theory?

And what does the union's survival have to do with harm to workers or the public at large?

Is there a pithy list you could cite?

[---]

I figured the cartelization argument would come up, and I don't think anyone would dispute that, including the unions themselves. However, it may be irrelevant due to the fact that human labor is very unique compared to other goods. I mean, a carbon rod doesn't care about much other than getting parades and vacuous awards because, well, it's inanimate. Humans, on the other hand, care about a hell of a lot of other things besides just being a cog in the workforce, and those cares may mean that we sustain a bit of pure economic cost in order to cater to them.

Issue is, economic costs have implications beyond bottom lines, and are always manifest in human costs.

Also, isn't some degree of cartelization necessary to prevent a prisoner's dilemma like race to the bottom?

Please explain. Are you saying there's no competition in labor markets?

It seems to me that, aside from some odd market like professional sports, (firm-specific unions) wouldn't even be able to exist in the first place.

Heh, interesting you mention this. MLBPA came about in 1953 as a means to undermine the salary-suppressing effects of MLB's antitrust exemption. To the extent this was an effective means for improving player compensation, it was still a far less effective means of ensuring wages approached those that would be determined in more competitive environments than was the era post-Flood free agency. Even in a highly oligopolistic market like the MLB, it can't be said that the market structure produces levels of competition insufficient to ensure convergence in compensation to something approaching perfect competition.

[elliseamos]

what does evolution tell us about technology replacing laborers and the human cost being doubled (both the inability to get a job and the inability to afford a product made by the company)?

[stip]

Scalia's Chance to Smash Unions: The Huge Under-the-Radar Case

By Josh Eidelson, Salon

13 November 13



A Supreme Court case being argued Wednesday could take away a tactic that's kept unions alive


n Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on an under-the-radar case that could deal a major blow to already embattled U.S. unions. As Harvard labor law professor Benjamin Sachs told the New York Times, the case now facing Antonin Scalia and company could be "the most significant labor case in a generation."

The case, Unite Here Local 355 v. Mulhall, involves the constitutionality of "card check neutrality agreements" between unions and companies they're trying to organize. That's the technical-sounding term for agreements that pave the way for unionization by restricting companies from running union-busting campaigns, and by committing companies to recognize a union and start negotiating if a majority of workers sign union cards, rather than holding out for a government-supervised election. In exchange, unions can agree not to publicly shame and slam the company - which means calling off the kind of public pressure campaign often necessary to compel companies to sign away their union-busting rights.

None of this would matter as much if the New Deal National Labor Relations Act, which commits the federal government to encourage collective bargaining (seriously, that's what it says), actually ensured that it was up to a company's workers, not its management, whether to have a union contract. But the government-supervised National Labor Relations Board unionization process is, depending on your level of cynicism, either "broken" or "fixed" against workers. It's rife with opportunities for bosses to delay, gerrymander and intimidate workers - including holding mandatory on-the-clock anti-union lectures full of ominous "predictions" - without breaking the law. And research suggests it's also marked by rampant illegality - including alleged illegal firings in a third of election campaigns - that's perhaps predictable given that the worst-case scenario for scofflaw CEOs is usually reinstating an employee months later with back pay. Even if pro-union workers win an election, the law alone doesn't make corporations offer real contract concessions, and a year after the vote workers are about as likely as not to still be without a union contract.

In other words, just having passively pro-union workers and a putatively pro-union law isn't enough to force a transfer of wealth and power to workers. Confronted with this reality, some unions have taken up a range of tactics that aim to compel concessions from corporations. The best of these are truly "comprehensive campaigns" - combining aggressive workplace activism like strikes, non-astroturf community and consumer pressure, and sophisticated attacks on a company's legal, political and media vulnerabilities. Other efforts are more anemic - a website and a "usual suspects" press release. Most companies can tell the difference.

And, more controversially, some campaigns are about enticing companies as much as intimidating them - by offering companies lobbying assistance, or pre-agreeing on how much a contract could cost, or excluding other groups of non-union workers within a company's ranks. An activist identified as a Chicago health food store cashier predicted to In These Times' Arun Gupta that once the Service Employees International Union saw the opportunity for "a win" in the fast food campaign it's funded and fomented, the union would "focus on it narrowly," and "the concern becomes: What about all the other workers who are now mobilized, who have organized themselves, but don't necessarily fit into SEIU's focus for a win?" An SEIU spokesperson told Gupta that "community organizations that are part of the coalition and workers continue to brainstorm and expect to experiment with a variety of actions and strategies."

However they end, those fast food strikes exemplify a larger trend: Through a range of tactics, unions try to secure recognition and contracts without retaliation or deadlock - whether with an NLRB election in which union-busters' hands are tied by a side agreement, or through a promise to recognize a union once a majority show support ("card check" or "majority sign-up"). But John Roberts' Supreme Court may make that harder to do, by restricting unions' ability to make such deals - good deals, bad deals, or otherwise.

As the Times' Steven Greenhouse reported, at issue in the Mulhall case is a neutrality agreement between a Florida local of the hospitality workers union Unite Here and the company Mardi Gras Gaming, in which the company agreed to card check and the union agreed to eschew strikes and pickets, and to support a ballot initiative on gambling. (I worked for Unite Here from 2006 to 2011 - not in Florida - but have no inside knowledge of the case.) With help from an anti-union foundation, a casino employee brought a lawsuit arguing that the deal was an illegal "thing of value" that a company was prevented under federal law from giving to union officials. An appeals court sided against the union, clashing with two other circuits' takes on the issue and setting the stage for a SCOTUS decision.

"Because essentially all successful union organizing campaigns today are conducted" under "alternative ground rules," professor Sachs wrote Tuesday, "the case could effectively outlaw union organizing (at, at least, outlaw effective union organizing)."

If the Court sides against the union, and further circumscribes a relatively effective union tactic, it wouldn't be the first time. In fact, U.S. workers have repeatedly seen their best tactics hindered or hamstrung by politicians and courts. The Taft-Hartley Act restricted strikes, and workers' freedom to spread their struggle through a supply chain - the kind of pressure whose potency antiabortion activists demonstrated by going after the Komen Foundation in order to hurt Planned Parenthood. Companies have seized RICO in an effort to get peaceful pressure tactics - like discouraging Oprah from promoting a pork company - treated as evidence of illicit racketeering. Now congressional Republicans are going after what I've called "Alt-labor" groups - non-union labor groups using comprehensive campaign tactics to organize workers who legally can't unionize or so far haven't - and seeking to subject them to some of the same legal restrictions that hem in unions. Others have sought to ban companies from recognizing unions without a government-supervised election. And, as Greenhouse notes, the Court will also consider cracking down on unionization of Medicaid-funded home-care workers. This is the pattern that led then-AFL-CIO president Lane Kirkland to pronounce in the ‘80s and ‘90s that unions would be better off under "the law of the jungle" than the status quo.

If the right-wing lobby's Mulhall legal theory were taken to its logical conclusion, AFL-CIO general counsel Craig Becker told the Times, it "would criminalize a large swath of ordinary, voluntary labor-management relations." Added Becker, a former member of the National Labor Relations Board, "The implications are really sweeping."

[broken iris]

what does evolution tell us about technology replacing laborers and the human cost being doubled (both the inability to get a job and the inability to afford a product made by the company)?

20th century German history may provide some clues.