Which also marks the beginning of the decline of unionism. It’s true that not all unions were explicitly discriminatory. Many, however, were discriminatory in practice and/or benefited from the discrimination present in the wider society.

No, in fact it no union had a gender bar and the few ever had a color bar. By 1950 only two non-CIO railway unions had a color bar. Union membership would continue to rise. The courageous actions of the CIO unions, particularly such faithful Catholics as Phillip Murray and Jim Carey, in expelling the Communists from CIO unions probably caused disruption that stalled union growth after the war. The de-industrialization of the 1970s and 1980s, along with illegal and immoral company refusal to recognize the civil and divine right of workers to form a union would be the primary causes of the decline in membership that occurred in the 1970 and 1980s.

No institution, not even the Church, was in the forefront the civil rights movement the way the labor movement was.

As Dr. King also said “Negroes in the United States read the history of labor and find it mirrors their own experience….The labor-hater and the Negro-baiter is virtually always a twin headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth”

“On the other matter, you’ve lost me.”

Think of it this way: what would wages be like in those hotels if there no hotel had ever been unionized? If you want to say they’d be lower, that’s a fair argument. If you want to say that they’d more or less be where wages were in the early 1900s, I don’t think that makes much sense. Whatever the benefits of unions, they can’t be credited (or, I should say, can’t credibly be credited) with the bulk of the benefits in wages that have occurred over the past 100 years.

I would again let Dr. King speak for me “The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and, above all, new wage levels the meant not mere survival but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation; they resisted it until they were overcome. ”

From where we stand today, it seems impossible to us that our society would allow workers to be treated the way they were 100 years ago. So you conclude that without the labor movement, we would have still achieved the social progress we did. But that is about like saying that since today we see slavery as so impossible to defend, had there not been an Abolitionist Movement, we still would had ended slavery.

Which also marks the beginning of the decline of unionism. It’s true that not all unions were explicitly discriminatory. Many, however, were discriminatory in practice and/or benefited from the discrimination present in the wider society.

“On the other matter, you’ve lost me.”

Think of it this way: what would wages be like in those hotels if there no hotel had ever been unionized? If you want to say they’d be lower, that’s a fair argument. If you want to say that they’d more or less be where wages were in the early 1900s, I don’t think that makes much sense. Whatever the benefits of unions, they can’t be credited (or, I should say, can’t credibly be credited) with the bulk of the benefits in wages that have occurred over the past 100 years.

But if you are raising this as anecdote rather then the nature of labor-management relations, i don’t think you are making a case for your cause.

Unions, good or ill, are not another layer of mangement. Management is accountable to the stockholders. The Union leaders are elected by the workers. As the church teaches, workers have a natural law right to organize for the advancement of their legitimate interests. There are virtuous employers, yes. But the existance of virtuous public officials does not let as dispense with election or virtuous newspaper publishers let us dispense with a free press.

Katherine, this is why I have a hard time taking you seriously. You need to read more carefully. My story pointed out that only one boss was virtuous, the ther one was arguably milking his workers, and I made no mention of workers being “vice-ridden”. In my 2nd scenario, these people were hired by the “virtuous” boss for a higher wage and benefits because they were good workers and undervalued. My point was that sometimes there is not a need for an extra layer of management called a “union”.

My first story was meant to illustrate how a union complicated the shutdown of a plant that it helped necessitate to begin with. Interference in the market may be well-intentioned but bad, unintended consequences may still ensue and the wise acount for these.

I realize that the plural of anecdote is not data, but the lazy rhetoric of union as panacea has become tiresome and your line “labor looks pretty good” recalls the fable of the blind men and the elephant.

The civil rights movement had it’s height during the 1960′s (I know, I was there). None of the CIO unions organized in the 1930s ever had a color bar. Very few other unions ever had a color bar, mostly a few railway unions and they were well on their way to intergration by the 1940s. Labor was without a doubt ahead of society on civil rights and a major force in the enactment of civil rights legislation. Remember it was AFL-CIO Vice President A. Philip Randolph who organized the 1963 March on Washington even though Dr. King’s speech stole the show.

On the other matter, you’ve lost me. I don’t know anyone else who does not agree that when a critical number of employees in an industry are organized, the union rate impacts the industry standard. Copy cat wage increases is the term of art of labor economists.

Try the Landrum-Griffeth Act. In fact, no private institution is subject to the anti-corruption oversight as labor unions are — not business, not the Church, not academia. Original sin is real and no one can guarantee no bad apples, but in a world of Enron and other business swindlers, labor looks pretty good. BTW, every union officer’s salary can be viewed on the Depatment of Labor’s website. If only Mrs. McCain had the same level of scrunity.

I’ve witnessed a situation where one firm in an industry which was constantly hiring employees from a competing firm literally down the block who mistreated employees. The competing firm eventually had to improve it’s treatment of workers and its damaged public image to retain employees and business. Everyone benefited from my friend’s firm and no unions were involved in the scenario.

Your presumption that all bossess are virteous and all workers are vice-ridden is not a view of human nature I share.

What do you mean by “productivity”? Why is it important? Surely a company that can demand employees work very harder for less will be more productive. Is that a good goal? Is the point of productivity questions to ask how to treat workers to get the most out of them, and make sure they get no better than that?

I think you miss my point. Many businesses set their wages based on where other businesses have set their wages. But from the fact that business A sets its wages based on the wages of business B, it doesn’t follow that if it weren’t for business B, business A workers would never get a pay raise. After all, if business B went out of business, it’s not like business A would set its wages at zero. It would simply find some other measure of where it should set its wages.

P.S. You’re right about Taft-Hartley. My impression was that it passed in the mid-1950s (a silly mistake, given Taft was already dead by then). In fact it was passed in 1947. I’m afraid I don’t see anything in the post on which such a change of dates hinges, however.

I agree that some people are willing to pay a higher price for a product if they know it was made using union labor, just as some people are willing to pay a higher price for a product if it was “Made in the U.S.A.” or “certified Fair Trade” etc. The evidence, however, seems to be that this increase in demand isn’t enough to compensate for the wage premiums and lost productivity that unionization brings.

On the issue of whether economics is or should be value-free, I would say that it’s important to distinguish between economics as a science, and the economist as a person. If I am a historian, say, then there most certainly ought to be a moral dimension to my work, both in that I should conduct my research with honesty and integrity, and that I may be motivated by some specifically moral purpose. And once I reach my historical conclusions, there may be all sorts of moral lessons that can be drawn. But what wouldn’t be proper would be for me to say: “x shouldn’t have happened, therefore it didn’t,” or “y should have happened, therefore it did.” Likewise, if unions lower productivity, then they lower productivity. Saying that this shouldn’t be the case won’t change that fact.

What kind of a unit? :-)

This is the kind of statement, even had the spell-checker been on, that doesn’t advance the argument of those critical of unions. The truth is that unions were once much better and did many good things, e.g., they improved horrible conditions, made sure workers didn’t have to work on Sunday, etc.

In my opinion, unions in general have become detrimental to business and are a business model unto themselves. There is nothing keeping them from corruption and even the word on the street isn’t 100% thumbs up for unions anymore. I heard of a local leader in Cleveland making $300K. Sweet, but hope not to many people find out.

I’ve witnessed a situation where one firm in an industry which was constantly hiring employees from a competing firm literally down the block who mistreated employees. The competing firm eventually had to improve it’s treatment of workers and its damaged public image to retain employees and business. Everyone benefited from my friend’s firm and no unions were involved in the scenario. Obviously a case can exist where there is no “righteous” company in a given region, hence the need for unions to be a knight on a white horse. But at this point the knight is old and fat and can’t fit into his suit of armor anymore.