Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.
As to public sector employee unions I would find this observation convincing.
Historically, the union movement in the private sector is more complicated. This past week I viewed an excellent PBS American Experience on The Triangle Shirt Fire.
From the PBS site:
It was the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history. A dropped match on the 8th floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sparked a fire that killed over a hundred innocent people trapped inside. The private industry of the American factory would never be the same.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704150604576166011983939364.html
No comments:
Post a Comment