re: Michigan teacher wants to quit union--but can't

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When unions do their job they actually actively combat the rise in real wages! They do so by various means aimed at destroying the rise in the productivity of labor.

They oppose the introduction of labor-saving machinery on the grounds that it causes unemployment.

They oppose competition among workers.

They require featherbedding practices and impose make-work schemes.

They impose narrow work classifications, and require that specialists be employed at a day’s pay to perform work that others could easily do.

The artificial wage increases imposed by the labor unions result in unemployment when above-market wages are imposed throughout the economic system. Employers in the nonunion fields will feel compelled to offer their workers wages comparable to what the union workers are receiving — indeed, possibly even still higher wages — in order to ensure that they do not unionize.

Widespread wage increases closing large numbers of workers out of numerous occupations put extreme pressure on the wage rates of whatever areas of the economic system may still remain open. These limited areas could absorb the overflow of workers from other lines at low enough wage rates. But minimum-wage laws prevent wage rates in these remaining lines from going low enough to absorb these workers.

Far from being responsible for improvements in the standard of living of the average worker, labor unions operate in more or less total ignorance of what actually raises the average worker’s standard of living. In consequence of their ignorance, they are responsible for artificial inequalities in wage rates, for unemployment, and for holding down real wages and the average worker’s standard of living.

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