Mike Farrell Didn't Cause This Crisis (Though He Made M*A*S*H Suck a Little More). F. Murray Abaraham Didn't Cause This Crisis (Though He Made Fruit of the Loom Commercials a Whole Lot Better). Jerry Stiller…
The stars come out for the Employee Free Choice Act, a.k.a. "card check."
Watch and learn who caused this crisis (hint: greedy corporate CEOs, not wealthy, unionized actors) and what will solve it (hint: higher wages for workers at companies that are already operating at losses).
I think collective bargaining is A-OK. It can reduce transaction costs on both sides by simplifying all sorts of things. And I think unions that function more like sports-league unions by creating a basic workplace agreement that can then be individualized are the way of the future for unions. But "card check" seems messed up on all sorts of levels (especially on the issue of secret or semi-secret ballots).
Most fundamentally, the latest push for unionization uber alles is missing the boat that the nature of work, especially in the private sector, has changed. The whole labor-management split doesn't make the sense it may have 80 years ago. Even public-sector workers don't want their compensation to be tied to the least productive of a group. Etc. For those and many other reasons, unionism is being revealed as a historical phenomenon, not a forward-looking trend. Look it up here.
