Dear Editor,
Thanks to Barbara Baker for repeating labor's party line that unions
create leisure. As the SF Business Times is about business, I hope you
will give sound economic principals the last word over simple rhetoric.
Capitalists know leisure can only occur through higher productivity,
mostly through capital investment. The reason there's a 100x-1000x
differential in living standards between rich and poor countries is
capital formation. If not, why don't third world countries raise their
real wages to first world standards by creating labor unions?
The answer is there's not enough output to support our consumption
levels. Ms. Baker's points are the typical Marxist analysis that there's
a fixed pot of money somewhere and it's simply a matter of dishing out
more for workers at the expense of employers. That riots added to wages,
leisure and working conditions is unions' version of labor history.
"Correlation does not prove causality". That strikes occurred does not
explain how workers unionized or not, can enjoy a 40 hour work week.
Every capitalist knows that wages, leisure and working conditions are
not set by employers, unions or government. They are set by production
and customers.
While unions can't raise wages for all workers, they can raise wages for
some workers. Higher wages for the same output reduces demand so there's
a natural tendency towards a market wage. The goal of unions is to
prevent this from happening. They can do this only by excluding workers
willing to work at lower wages and the businesses that hire them through
the laws Ms. Baker mentions. This forces workers to seek lower wage jobs
or find other lines of work. Our first minimum wage law in 1913 cost the
jobs of 10% of the poor working women the law was supposed to protect.
The least unionized parts of the US are the fastest growing while the
most unionized sections are called the "Rust Belt". If unions lobbied
for all the laws Ms. Baker mentioned, then they are the cause of rising
unemployment and making American industry and labor less competitive
internationally. That's nothing to brag about.
It's amazing Ms. Baker and her labor union buddies cannot see the irony
in their position that workers need protection from employers through
government's regulation of business. If government is so great, what's
the justification for public sector unions? The worn out lie that
capitalists are exploiters and benevolent government rescues workers is
exposed by the fact that public sector union workers outnumber those of
the private sector unions 2 to 1. The relationship between unions and
government has nothing to do with protecting "workers". As usual, it's
about power and using the law to protect those that have at the expense
of those who don't.
If present trends continue, private sector unions will disappear. It's
long past time for public sector unions to be disbanded too.
Michael Denny
San Francisco
(415) 986-7677 x123