Unions In Decline

Michigan's legislature approved two "Right-To-Work" bills aimed at curtailing compulsory Union dues.  For Michigan, it may well be too little, too late to have any sort of positive economic impact, but it is still a victory for freedom and common sense.

When an employee joins a company, the contract is between them.  Any external interference, including on the part of the government, which attempts to alter the otherwise mutually agreed upon terms is a restriction on freedom on both the employer and employee.  In other words, people should be left to enter their own contracts on their own volition.

Union leaders must ask themselves that if what they offer is so great, why must people be forced to pay for it?  Their counter argument is that employees who do not pay union dues will "free load" and benefit from what the Union has fought for without paying for it.   This is absurd because anyone, unionized or not, benefits from the previous improvements made prior to that employee joining said company, they are not expected to pay for them.  The exchange is work for pay, not pay for improvements already made.  If a future pay dispute arises which affects the union, the non-union member can be excluded from the process and the benefit, if there is one; that is the right of the Union as an organization.  

Unions are desperate because they are becoming obsolete.  Union membership has been on a steep decline since the 1940s and now, not surprisingly, Public Employee Union membership outnumbers Private Employee Union membership.       

Some of the above graph has been interpolated, but the overall trend is clear.  Union proponents will argue that this correlates with stagnant wages, or a smaller percentage of overall wealth for the "middle class".    These are both largely myths, based on looking at incomplete or misleading statistics, rather than individuals.

There are a number of reasons for the decline in Union membership.  For one, machines have replaced men in many of the dangerous positions, so there is less motivation to seek Union protection.  Secondly, people are no longer satisfied with working the same job for life, as they once did generations ago.  People want to move upward and occasionally, move into other industries.  Unions are not flexible in this way; they are designed to protect a bloc of people in a specific field, not a bunch of dynamic individuals who are constantly changing position, rank, and pay.   Another reason people have been shying away is that Unions tend to contribute to political parties, this turns off a lot of potential members, particularly when the dues paid are compulsory.    Lastly, because people are much more mobile, employers are more likely to offer pay and benefits that compete with what a Union would offer, but without the headaches of Union dues and regulations. 

Unions are an endangered species.  If they want to survive, they will have to evolve to better serve their members and stop relying on force* and intimidation to collect money.

More here from my favorite economist and advocate for freedom, Milton Friedman.

*Edit; I want to mention with regards to the clip featuring Steven Crowder; I often disagree with Crowder on a number of key issues including the Drug War and Gay Marriage (or Marriage Equality, if you prefer).  Despite these disagreements, the video speaks for itself and, I believe, displays all-to-typical Union thuggery.  No one, not even Crowder, deserves to be punched for having a different opinion, it just so happens Crowder is right on this particular issue.