Some Unions Are More Collusive Than Others

[Dan Clore]

News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

[I made a similar point here:

http://www.nolanchart.com/article6060-a-libertarian-alternative-to-the-efca.html
--DC]

http://c4ss.org/content/15516
Some unions are more collusive than others
by Jeremy Weiland
Dec 19, 2012


Defenders of “right to work” laws often argue that unions are collusive
and extortive in a way that is simply unfair to employers. Neither
workers nor management, they say, should be forced to negotiate through
unions, and “right to work” simply levels the playing field by ensuring
that employees can always negotiate directly with management.

The whole point of labor unions, in the minds of RTW supporters, is to
exploit the Wagner Act requirement that parties “negotiate in good
faith,” thereby moving wages and benefits up in a way a free market in
labor would never allow. Jason Sorens even compares unions with Mafia
protection rackets in this regard (“Right-to-Work: An Inflammatory
Analogy,” Pileus, December 17).

To describe this line of reasoning as selective would be a gross
understatement. Labor is not the only interest engaging in collective
bargaining. What about the individuals involved in the employing
corporation? Aren’t these businesses effectively “capital unions”
exploiting incorporation laws to achieve a better bargaining position
relative to labor? Isn’t that why investors pool their resources and
form businesses — to get better deals in the market through economies of
scale? Isn’t that why they try to get investors rather than simply
borrowing all the money for their start-up costs — to spread the risk
and the reward?

Labor unions are only one side of this story. To emphasize collusion on
the workers’ side is to leave another form of collusion totally
unaddressed. Corporations are capital unions, organizations whose
members work together to negotiate wages and benefits (and other costs,
of course) downwards to get the best return for themselves. Why is one
form of collusion wrong and the other not?

I’d add that, in historical comparison to labor unions, corporations are
much more fully creatures of the state. While labor unions have existed
for much of their history in legally unrecognized forms, arising from
the spontaneous organizing efforts of workers themselves, incorporation
has always been a government-chartered, government-privileged, and
therefore necessarily statist activity. There’s nothing “free market” in
the fact that corporations are dealt with on their own, special terms.
Conferring limited liability, entity status, and other privileges on
corporations is intervention to skew the market, a crime that can only
be laid at the feet of the state and the capitalists that run it.

I view the RTW movement as not only the argument that capital should get
to deal with labor in a privileged manner, but also as a defense of the
entire balance of power between employers and employees. It’s about more
than just authoritarianism and a system that favors capital over labor.
It’s also about the legal codification of class distinctions inherent in
the structure of production.

To the extent that capitalists decry so-called “class warfare,” they are
glossing over the privileged terms on which they themselves do business
— claiming there are no classes of consequence while entrenching their
own class, allegedly deferring to the market, while actually ensuring
that market always delivers the balance of power they desire.

If RTW folks truly believe that each and every worker deserves the right
to negotiate individually with the capital union, why stop there? Why
not also grant each and every shareholder, investor, creditor, and other
owner of the corporate capital union the right to negotiate individually
with the worker himself or his labor union? Why should both workers and
owners be forced to deal with the extractive, exploitative management
class as the exclusive agent of the corporation? If it’s unfair for the
labor union to monopolize labor relative to a given employer, isn’t it
equally unfair for the capital union to monopolize capital relative to a
given employee?

The reason is that capital unions are politically and legally favored in
labor negotiations, because they have always been favored. Our entire
political economy is built around doing business on their terms. If you
want a genuinely free market in labor, you can start by ridding yourself
of the biased narratives that explain how collective bargaining is
virtuous and crucial for those who have money, but unnecessary and evil
for those who don’t.

--
Dan Clore

New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-unspeakable-and-others/6124911
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Report on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_