I'd say teacher's unions moreso than others. As I see it unions have a place in situations where people are completely replaceable at virtually zero-cost.
Someone who sits on a factory line and counts the number of widgets that go by could be replaced by someone else in a heartbeat with no loss of performance because there is a huge supply of labor and little demand. As a result such a job is a race to the bottom in terms of pay, but we have minimum wage laws for that reason. As it is, a union negotiates that person's pay up from a $7/hr minimum wage to a $16/hr + $3/year + pension job that costs the equivalent of $30/year, for which amount they could hire THREE people who are looking for widget counting jobs and get a bonus 300% productivity level to boot.
So in that case Union pay representation benefits the few at the expense of the many. Pay isn't everything, however, and it definitely has a place in terms of negotiating working conditions, settling grievances, etc. When you don't care about retaining someone you can take great liberties with their working conditions and unions rightly should put a stop to that.
I'm more confused by Unions representing people who can be judged on their own individual merit -- good teachers _can_ be identified and targeted for retention (through pay, vacation time, and other incentives). Why would exceptional teachers want to be paid as though they were the average member of their trade? In that case it seems like half of teachers would be underpaid while the other half are overpaid. The only way a majority of teachers would support something like that is if the union made use of their unique ability to strongarm their employer through work disruption in order to increase that pay rate above the average market rate.
For example, if in a non-unionized, free market the average teacher makes $25/hr, new and underperforming teachers make $15/hr, and exceptional teachers make $40/hr, then Union representation saying that everyone will be paid $25/hr is actually pulling down the pay of the top half their members and pulling up the bottom. This is backwards to me -- bad teachers should be fired to make room for those who have the potential to be exceptional and exceptional teachers should be able to earn much more than they do.
But then the Union says, "I know the market rate is $25, but we're going to strike until you pay $30. You can't hire anyone who isn't in the union, and you can't fire all of us, so we can (and it's our fiduciary duty to) really ask for whatever we think you can afford."
And so then you have a majority of the pool who are being pulled up to a higher-than-market rate and only the very best who are still being pulled down. The school district is unable to pay for more teachers (because they are paying $15,000 an hour for 500 teachers instead of $12,500, they can only afford the 500 instead of 600 for the same rate) and working conditions decline as those who are employed are overworked and end up spending more time at home doing their work (guess what that does to their hourly rate?).
Unions can definitely have a place in ensuring consistent working conditions, coordinating people, even settling grievances provided it doesn't result in "unfireable" employees. I just don't see how their collective bargaining power serves the public good, nor how it is a "right" to be "fought for."
no subject
Someone who sits on a factory line and counts the number of widgets that go by could be replaced by someone else in a heartbeat with no loss of performance because there is a huge supply of labor and little demand. As a result such a job is a race to the bottom in terms of pay, but we have minimum wage laws for that reason. As it is, a union negotiates that person's pay up from a $7/hr minimum wage to a $16/hr + $3/year + pension job that costs the equivalent of $30/year, for which amount they could hire THREE people who are looking for widget counting jobs and get a bonus 300% productivity level to boot.
So in that case Union pay representation benefits the few at the expense of the many. Pay isn't everything, however, and it definitely has a place in terms of negotiating working conditions, settling grievances, etc. When you don't care about retaining someone you can take great liberties with their working conditions and unions rightly should put a stop to that.
I'm more confused by Unions representing people who can be judged on their own individual merit -- good teachers _can_ be identified and targeted for retention (through pay, vacation time, and other incentives). Why would exceptional teachers want to be paid as though they were the average member of their trade? In that case it seems like half of teachers would be underpaid while the other half are overpaid. The only way a majority of teachers would support something like that is if the union made use of their unique ability to strongarm their employer through work disruption in order to increase that pay rate above the average market rate.
For example, if in a non-unionized, free market the average teacher makes $25/hr, new and underperforming teachers make $15/hr, and exceptional teachers make $40/hr, then Union representation saying that everyone will be paid $25/hr is actually pulling down the pay of the top half their members and pulling up the bottom. This is backwards to me -- bad teachers should be fired to make room for those who have the potential to be exceptional and exceptional teachers should be able to earn much more than they do.
But then the Union says, "I know the market rate is $25, but we're going to strike until you pay $30. You can't hire anyone who isn't in the union, and you can't fire all of us, so we can (and it's our fiduciary duty to) really ask for whatever we think you can afford."
And so then you have a majority of the pool who are being pulled up to a higher-than-market rate and only the very best who are still being pulled down. The school district is unable to pay for more teachers (because they are paying $15,000 an hour for 500 teachers instead of $12,500, they can only afford the 500 instead of 600 for the same rate) and working conditions decline as those who are employed are overworked and end up spending more time at home doing their work (guess what that does to their hourly rate?).
Unions can definitely have a place in ensuring consistent working conditions, coordinating people, even settling grievances provided it doesn't result in "unfireable" employees. I just don't see how their collective bargaining power serves the public good, nor how it is a "right" to be "fought for."