Coase Colored Glasses

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Unions

I was listening to NPR the other morning and they were interviewing someone who was part of a group that recently broke with the AFL-CIO.

This woman said that the group she represented was going to stop trying to recruit employees of a single business and instead widen their search to entire communities. For example, she said they would try to unite all the child care workers or all the janitors, in a whole community.

What I am wondering is if the good effects of a union outweigh the bad effects on the economy? It seems to me that a group of people who are controlling the price of their services in a community would set those prices higher than consumers would be willing to pay for them if there was competition in that sector.

Hypothetically,
Would the point of a Union of Childcare workers in Cache Valley be to protect those child care workers from (exploitation- or i don't know what) or to reduce competition and use the union as a way to raise their prices and make more money?

4 Comments:

At 10:10 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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At 12:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The fact is that unions are part of this counrty. They are a powerful interest group, and like any interest group once they get their foot in the door it is going to be next to impossible to get rid of them. Are they good or are they bad is not the question that needs to be asked. They are and always will be, so their goodness is not an issue. The question that should be asked is how we can use them to our advantage?

 
At 9:59 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

In some sectors Unions may be good still, not sure exactly which in the era of globalization... but low skilled jobs can be outsourced to China or Mexico. Our Unions have been reduced to the lowest common denominator in the world market until the rest of the world catches up... until then Unions in the U.S. appear obsolete.

 
At 3:58 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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