Thread: Unions
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Old 12-04-2003, 08:58 AM   #31 (permalink)
Superbelt
This vexes me. I am terribly vexed.
 
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Location: Grantville, Pa
Quote:
Unions accomplish this, in part, through "collective bargaining" tactics, which is much like collusion, except that it is considered legal and therefore unnecessary to keep secret. Essentially, through these means, a controlling majority of the suppliers of a specific good seek to limit its supply or institute and enforce a price floor on said good. In the case of unions, that good is labor. It is similar to the tactics employed by OPEC.
It's also similar to the tactic practiced by every large business in the world. Use your percentage of control of a certain market to bargain for a better price.
That is capitalism at work! Thanks.

It's a workers right to strike. An employer COULD just fire them all and hire new non-union workers. But then they gain the ire of the general public, and lose all that experience and skill. Again, that is capitalism at work! Yay for america!

Quote:
I assume that you are at least high school educated and you know what a supply curve and a demand curve look like (remember - price on the vertical axis, quantity on the horizontal axis). Where these curves intersect is where, in a free market, your equilibrium price will be established. If we're talking about the supply of labor, we're faced with a relatively inelastic supply curve. In other words, one can't simply produce more labor by, say, breeding workers, nor can one easily reduce supply by killing them. So, in the short term (excluding long term demographic trends), the supply curve remains pretty much constant
Working on a graduate degree. Basically what you posted is gobbledegook.
In a union, the laws of supply and demand deteriorate. Instead of the employer having all the power, the workers mass together to get collective bargaining power. They begin to dictate some of the supply, since they are what is being marketed to the business.

Again, that IS capitalism.
You want it some other way? Go live in a Dictatorship.

Simple economic fact is, if you create an attractive environment for workers, as Unions have, you will attract the most intelligent, hard working, and driven people from around the world. This will increase your countrys wealth because you took it away from your competitors. As long as you keep the working environment better than your competitors you will have DEMAND for workers.
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