If they should have the right to unionize, then someone needs to enforce that right. Or the company with far more power (Starbucks) will retaliate so hard that the right, in practice, does not exist.
I thought this country was about protecting rights. I’m not interested in living in a society where companies with vast amounts of power can do whatever they want to make money. The incentives are nearly completely unaligned with human flourishing, and you don’t need to look far to see that.
> If they should have the right to unionize, then someone needs to enforce that right.
The government isn't prohibiting them from forming a union and there are existing laws against companies retaliating through violence. If the company isn't retaliating with violence, isn't the union supposed to be the thing that protects them? Why don't they just get together and go on strike?
And if the answer is that the union has no power because they're unskilled labor and can be easily replaced, it seems like that's your real problem. What good is forming a union which is just going to go on strike and get permanently replaced by other workers?
>The government isn't prohibiting them from forming a union and there are existing laws against companies retaliating through violence. If the company isn't retaliating with violence, isn't the union supposed to be the thing that protects them? Why don't they just get together and go on strike?
For that to happen the union has to already exist and be powerful.
Because they can't form a union in the first place due to union busting tactics like compulsory meetings that talk about how unions are bad, hiring consultants that spread fear and misinformation, or just threatening your livelihood by firing you for even attempting to form one.
There's a power imbalance—enforcement exists to help balance the scales so that an efficient negotiation between workers and the company can happen.
> Because they can't form a union in the first place due to union busting tactics like compulsory meetings that talk about how unions are bad, hiring consultants that spread fear and misinformation
This doesn't actually prevent you from forming a union unless you believe what they tell you. Which you might, if some of it is true, but that's a poor reason to prohibit them from telling you.
If employees can't even be bothered to hear what the union has to say then chances are working conditions aren't all that bad. If they are, and then they have to hear from the boss as well as the union before making their decision, what's the problem?
> or just threatening your livelihood by firing you for even attempting to form one.
It's very difficult for the law to prohibit this in practice because there are always a dozen other reasons why someone might lose their job, and "you can never terminate someone if they're trying to form a union" doesn't work because sociopaths would abuse it by making some noise about a union so they can misbehave with impunity or if they suspect they're about to lose their job.
> There's a power imbalance—enforcement exists to help balance the scales so that an efficient negotiation between workers and the company can happen.
People always say this but it's not obvious how it's true. The company can terminate you and you can quit. This is an inconvenience for either of you but you can both actually do it in a practical sense and it happens all the time. If you don't like working there then having them terminate you can even be to your advantage because you get unemployment while looking for a new job.
Employers only have any kind of real leverage if there are a limited number of employers who hire someone with your skill set. But that's almost never true for unskilled labor and the better answer for it in specialized industries is antitrust enforcement rather than unionization, the latter of which just forces you to deal with two monopolists and then you're stuck with no way out of a potentially bad company and no way out of a potentially bad union.
If the power imbalance between employers and employees isn't obvious to you try the following: park all of your liquid assets in a CD and then try to make rent for six months on whatever job(s) you can get without presenting a resume or any higher education credential. For extra credit pull this off while raising kids.
I thought this country was about protecting rights. I’m not interested in living in a society where companies with vast amounts of power can do whatever they want to make money. The incentives are nearly completely unaligned with human flourishing, and you don’t need to look far to see that.