> Unions say that reasoning is flawed. Nonmembers are already entitled to refunds of payments spent on political activities, like advertising to support a political candidate.
> Collective bargaining is different, the unions say, and workers should not be free to reap the benefits of such bargaining without paying their fair share of the costs.
I've always wondered: Can I choose to bargain for myself, and not have the union do it?
Best as I can tell, the answer is: No. The union forces me to pay them to bargain for me.
That is unethical.
> should not be free to reap the benefits
Every single article on the subject always implies that there are benefits. What if I feel they are actually drawbacks?
An easy test: If they were actually benefits people would chose to use them, no? So let people work under union contracts, or on their own, as they chose. But you'll never see a union suggest that, will you? They always want to force people to "gain the benefits".
To your first point, non-union companies allow, in fact require each person to bargain for themselves. Generally the power imbalance at a reasonably large company means that employees accept what they're offered, because their only alternative is to quit and be replaced easily. This is the reason that groups of workers organize to form unions in the first place.
Game theory suggests that each person should want to avoid paying union dues, and yet have everyone else pay theirs, so that the union negotiates good rates for all, including them. The obvious outcome of voluntary dues, then, is for each person to eventually realize this and stop paying their own dues, so that the union collapses, shifting all power back to the employer and making employment worse for all. Humans are short-term thinkers, though, so that would be nigh-inevitable in most cases.
Eventually, see point one again. The mandatory dues are an attempt to stop the several-year cycle of shifting back and forth between a union and non-union shop, I believe.
I'll add a concrete example. My dad worked for a TV station. Of the 5 VHF stations in town, one was public TV, three were network, and one was independent.
One of the other stations was union. My dad's company was not. The owner of his company did not want the union. The owner kept the union out by paying everyone $1 more than their counterparts in the union station.
My dad thought this was great. He got the benefits of the union - higher wages - without paying union dues.
I look at it and think about how Dad could have gotten higher wages by being represented by a stronger union. Union power, like most things, is non-linear. A bigger union can pay for better negotiators than a small union can. That's a simple economy of scale - a larger union can have dedicated, full-time lawyers, for example, who stay on top of the laws and potential changes to the law.
When the owner died, and the station got bought out by a private equity firm, the firm did the usual round of layoffs, and it sold off the company into parts. A union might have been able to fight some of those layoffs. But there was no union.
But when he boasted about how he made more because he was non-union, such alternatives and futures were out-of-sight/out-of-mind. As you say, "Humans are short-term thinkers".
Let's say you work for the movie industry. The union requires that union members only work on union productions. If a union member works on a non-union production then they are kicked out of the union. Most people want to be in the union, which means most productions are unionized, even though the employer does not require union membership, the union cannot penalize the employer, and hiring a non-union member is not illegal.
Do you consider that arrangement to be ethical? If it's unethical, what is the basis by which you consider it ethical to force unionized employees to continue work with someone who is not a member of the union, instead of letting them quit their job?
I know this isn't what you asked, but it gets to the heart of the issue - unions are based on the free association right of employees to quit, and their free speech right to protest.
Current union power in the US is based on a compromise. Some union practices are banned, but in exchange they are also given some powers. For example, union members are not allowed to participate in 'wildcat strikes', that is, they cannot strike without permission of the union. On the other hand, unions are allowed to seek the monopoly right to negotiate on the behalf of all covered workers, including non-union ones.
I can well understand what people can think it's unethical to force people to be represented by the union, even if it's not wanted.
But ethics are not so simple. I strongly disagree with the Taft-Hartley Act, and the various so-called "Right-To-Work" laws, IMO correctly called "Right-To-Work-For-Less" laws.
I think wildcat strikes should not be illegal, just like I think jurisdictional strikes, closed shops, monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns, and the other practices prohibited by Taft-Hartley should not be illegal.
More importantly, I can't see how any ethics which requires people be allowed to negotiate on their own doesn't also end up allowing many union practices which are now banned.
Can you explain to me why wildcat strikes should be banned?
Stopped reading there. Mandatory funding of the Dem party is not gutting of unions.