> A union is a monopoly on labor, which has all the downsides of monopolies on goods or production.
I appreciate your citation of those papers, but I feel that this is an unjust comparison -- unions raise wages for workers even outside of their industry, whereas industrial monopolies frequently depress wages and raise prices for the benefit of a privileged few (generally executives and large shareholders). Unions are, historically, a reaction to that power imbalance of industrial monopolies, and attempt to counter diminished bargaining power. Unions increase economic equality, while industrial monopolies decrease it.
This reminds me of the debate over universal healthcare -- critics asserted that it decreased labor force participation, and was therefore a failure, when others argued was that it was evidence of its success--as people who wanted or needed to quit their job, such as those also acting as a caretaker, but previously didn't yet qualify for medicare, could finally retire.
Abolishing slavery also increased unemployment, as do raising interest rates -- the youth unemployment rate is a single data point to be balanced with other economic indicators that at the end are simply tools to tell a story about the prosperity of a society. Unions density, low poverty rates, and high wages are correlated across not just states but the entire world.
It is not a comparison, unjust or otherwise. A union is precisely a monopoly on labor. That is the point of a union. If you google, this is a common definition in economics on what a union is.
Are you claiming a union is not a monopoly on labor? Are you claiming that this labor monopoly does not have features of a monopoly? Upsides and downsides?
In fact, in order for unions to exist in the US, they had to be specifically exempted from anti-trust laws. The original anti-trust law, the Sherman Act, was used against unions, so future laws had to specifically allow the monopoly of a union.
So yes, a union is exactly and legally and economically a monopoly.
> Unions increase economic equality
You keep parroting this claim, despite my just having shown you multiple papers clearly demonstrating that this is simply untrue. Those people now unemployed in those papers, those not getting jobs in the future because unions stagnate growth - are they now better off and more equal?
Unions change who gets what, at major cost to many people, making some of them incredibly poorer.
There is simply no free lunch here. Forming a monopoly on labor will have effects - getting more money for those in the monopoly is not going to raise all boats - and that monopoly and those in it will try to hold their income, at the expense of immigrants, of those outside the group, of society at large.
So they pass costs on to consumers as well as pushing those out of work that would compete with them. This is pretty straightforward - and demonstrated in the literature as I posted.
So yes, unions can raise pay for those in it, may have some ripple effects to others, but you cannot ignore basic economics and what losses are caused elsewhere.
If you're going to ignore well sourced, peer reviewed evidence, and not provide solid counter evidence other than your continued opinion, there is really little left to discuss.
> So they pass costs on to consumers as well as pushing those out of work that would compete with them. This is pretty straightforward - and demonstrated in the literature as I posted
The literature you posted demonstrated no such thing. Again, you're now making expansive claims that are interpretations well beyond the scope of these papers, using "first principals" and "common sense" -- they show that unions increase wages at the cost of slightly raised unemployment among certain groups. There is no free lunch, but unions eating lunch at the expense of shareholder profits is absolutely a good thing and the point. Their affect on consumer prices was not demonstrated by your literature, but I assume you're going to make the same false libertarian argument against "minimum wage" -- that it raises some consumer prices and unemployment, and therefore, should be abolished (in spite of the massive evidence that's shown that it's been radically effective at lifting people out of poverty while having little effect on both)?
Your blanket condemnation of unions is ideological.
> Unions Reduce Inequality. You keep parroting this claim, despite my just having shown you multiple papers clearly demonstrating that this is simply untrue. Those people now unemployed in those papers, those not getting jobs in the future because unions stagnate growth - are they now better off and more equal?
Ok, here's a source that supports that unions actually increase productivity, that's about 20 years more recent than the source you posted.
"In total, results suggest that right to work laws work as intended, increasing economic inequality indirectly by lowering labor power resources. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed."
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/708067
Union Density Effects on Productivity and Wages
"Accounting for selection effects and the potential endogeneity of unionisation, the results show that increasing union density at the firm level leads to a substantial increase in both productivity and wages. The wage effect is larger in more productive firms, consistent with rent-sharing models."
https://academic.oup.com/ej/article/130/631/1898/5824627
"Decompositions based on public-sector earnings indicate that increases in union density have produced inequality that is 29 percent below what it otherwise would have been"
First, you never answered why you claimed unemployed youth is a good thing. Care to explain?
Do you now agree that a union is a monopoly of labor?
And switching to RTW laws instead of unionization hits upon one of the key areas: RTW lets more people work, so those regions also get lower quality people into jobs. Lower quality people earn less generally.
From your first paper, regarding RTW laws: "previous research finds these laws to be largely inconsequential" - so: did this paper overturn all previous papers? Or did later papers still support the "largely inconsequential" part? Papers are a discussion, so it's best to look at followups, such as the more recent, more widely cited [1]: it states that RTW is not what drives inequality - that is caused in the paper by preexisting variables, that both drive inequality and the passage of RTW laws. So I guess that covers that, right?
As I showed above - union companies have slower employment growth. This is done at the cost to less employable workers - especially youth and old - as also demonstrated which you then said was a good thing, for who knows what reason.
Your second paper is the same short-sighted claim you keep making - of course wages go up for those in a union. No one disputes that. It does not address that the cost is passed on to society and to displaced workers, which is the part you seem unable to admit also happens. If a monopoly on labor drives up wages, where do you think that money comes from? Owners simply hand it over? Or does it put pressure on employment, on investment, on business expansion, on prices?
We can keep going around. I agree there are benefits to unions, but you seem unable to admit there are also costs. Do you still think there are no downsides and that unemployed youth is a good thing? Do you admit a union is a monopoly on labor?
I appreciate your citation of those papers, but I feel that this is an unjust comparison -- unions raise wages for workers even outside of their industry, whereas industrial monopolies frequently depress wages and raise prices for the benefit of a privileged few (generally executives and large shareholders). Unions are, historically, a reaction to that power imbalance of industrial monopolies, and attempt to counter diminished bargaining power. Unions increase economic equality, while industrial monopolies decrease it.
This reminds me of the debate over universal healthcare -- critics asserted that it decreased labor force participation, and was therefore a failure, when others argued was that it was evidence of its success--as people who wanted or needed to quit their job, such as those also acting as a caretaker, but previously didn't yet qualify for medicare, could finally retire.
Abolishing slavery also increased unemployment, as do raising interest rates -- the youth unemployment rate is a single data point to be balanced with other economic indicators that at the end are simply tools to tell a story about the prosperity of a society. Unions density, low poverty rates, and high wages are correlated across not just states but the entire world.