this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2023
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"right to work" laws are misleadingly named laws that undermine unions by outlawing union shops from requiring membership. These laws lead to financial collapse of the union. All of the ten poorest states have these laws, and almost zero union membership.
To expand on that, no unions means the companies get to pay what they want, which is as little as possible. Since they are all on a race to the bottom, everyone ends up poor because that is what the companies are willing to pay.
Required union membership is a bit weird though. It can lead to so much abuse that it's not really a rational thing.
There ought to be several unions that have nothing to do with the specifics of one particular industry, but everything with workers rights.
Union corruption is a real thing and not all industries make sense to unionize
Not having a union typically leads to more abuse, no? Like, I'm not sure what union abuse looks like?
Yes, not having a union can lead to more abuse.
However having a mandatory union can lead to abuse too. Because it gives all the power to the union. You never want to give all the power to one entity. This basically creates a workplace mafia.
What you want in the workspace is to have several unions that can work together (or not). The more unions, the better (because it's easy to divide two unions, but harder to split seven).
Those unions ought to federate workers from widely different industries, so that they can carry the weight of many voices technically and politically.
Ideally, there ought to be some kind of legal infrastructure for the corporations and the unions and representative bodies of the workforce to periodically meet and update their generic contract.
Yeah, thats true, you want a union for each craft, who can understand and work for the benifit of those people. One union per company isn't too hot.
Given the most ideal situation tho, were the proper union distribution is in place, should union dues be mandatory? Thats the question at the heart of "right to work".
I'm puzzled by this, tho. Whats a representative body of the workforce?