Unions are Making a Most Welcome Comeback

It is axiomatic in life that when someone claims they oppose something an adversary wants because it’s better for the adversary, that someone is lying.

If the Pittsburgh Steelers wanted a 12th man on the field in a game, it would be legitimate for the Cowboys to say “Hey, that’s not fair!” But if, instead they say, “The Steelers shouldn’t get a 12th man because it will confuse and bewitch them, making them soft and less able to play their best game. I only want what’s best for them”, you’d obviously know they were full of shit. The same applies to a cooking contest: “My opponent’s dish would really be so much better if we gave him the rancid goat as his secret ingredient”.

Most people don’t do this, because it’s so clearly disengenuous. The problem is that sometimes your position is so untenable, so obviously self-interested and amoral, that you have no alternative but to bite the bullet and vomit out, “Hey, I’m only trying to help”, knowing how transparently preposterous everyone will see that to be.

This is the predicament that many American corporations find themselves in as they try to hold back the new resurgence of labor unions. It is undeniable that workers in unions do substantially better than workers in similar jobs who are not unionized.

On average, union workers’ wages are 30 percent higher than their nonunion counterparts. As Jon Lovitz said in A League of Their Own, “So, that would be more then!”. While only 19 percent of nonunion workers have guaranteed pensions, fully 78 percent of union workers do. 92% of Unionized workers have employer-provided health insurance, versus 68% of those not in unions. Plus, there are grievance procedures, employment security, paid holidays, paid sick leave, etc. All dramatically higher if you have a union card, or had one but misplaced it, than if you never had one at all.

Unions have been able to secure all of these benefits for their members for one reason: Collective Bargaining. If you walk into your boss’s office and say “Hey Scrooge (stereotyping? What? ME??) I haven’t had a raise since the Coolidge administration, and given that it’s been reported that you make my annual salary every 14 seconds, I thought maybe I could have a few extra shekels a month”, it is easy for Mr. Scrooge to tell you to kiss…