The Rants of Issachar
Saturday, May 03, 2008
A conservative view of unions: Part 2 - Strikes
Continuing my previous comment on unions...
The power to strike is an important power that unions have. It's not their only one, but it's almost certainly their most effective, so anyone who believes that unions are necessary should believe in the right to strike.
Although just as I don't believe unions are universally positive, I don't believe in an unrestricted right to strike.
I'm going to assume that virtually everyone agrees that essential services should not have the right to strike. The police should not have the power to refuse to work and thus hold the public hostage to their demands. This breaks down on the definition of "essential service", but in principle the idea is sound.
Given that, workers always have a right to refuse to work, but at some point I believe the employer has the moral right to hire other people. Here's an extremely ridiculous example of such a situation. The union demands that the owners give the company to the employees and refuses any compromise. I only give this admittedly ludicrous scenario to illustrate that at some point an employer has a moral right to hire other employees. So we need laws to govern strikes as well as some way to impose an agreement or binding arbitration if a labour dispute gets out of hand.
But what is the purpose of a strike? This also came up in the discussion on WMTC that I referred to in my last post. I'd said that the purpose of any strike was to inflict harm on the employer as a way of convincing the employer to accede to the union's demands, (by demonstrating the monetary value of their work), and that strikes should only inflict harm on the employer. L-girl disagreed and said that strikes were supposed "to be inconvenient for as many people as possible", presumably in order to maximize pressure on the employer.
With respect, I think strikes with such a purpose are unethical. How can a union justify inflicting harm on a third party that is not inflicting harm on the union members? The employer has the power to agree to union demands. Third parties and the public do not, and inflicting harm on someone who lacks the power to give you what you're asking in the hope that they'll put pressure on someone who does have that power is just plain wrong.
The implication of my stance is that strikes or at the very least full strikes should not be conducted on monopolies. To quote my earlier comment:
Update: 2:48pm
Of course a strike isn't the only tool a union has at it's disposal. A few years ago, the toll collectors on the Coquihalla highway were negotiating for better pay and rather than strike or shutdown the highway they simply stopped collecting tolls and waved drivers through. Drivers weren't harmed in any way, but the lost revenue was a strong argument for the union.
The power to strike is an important power that unions have. It's not their only one, but it's almost certainly their most effective, so anyone who believes that unions are necessary should believe in the right to strike.
Although just as I don't believe unions are universally positive, I don't believe in an unrestricted right to strike.
I'm going to assume that virtually everyone agrees that essential services should not have the right to strike. The police should not have the power to refuse to work and thus hold the public hostage to their demands. This breaks down on the definition of "essential service", but in principle the idea is sound.
Given that, workers always have a right to refuse to work, but at some point I believe the employer has the moral right to hire other people. Here's an extremely ridiculous example of such a situation. The union demands that the owners give the company to the employees and refuses any compromise. I only give this admittedly ludicrous scenario to illustrate that at some point an employer has a moral right to hire other employees. So we need laws to govern strikes as well as some way to impose an agreement or binding arbitration if a labour dispute gets out of hand.
But what is the purpose of a strike? This also came up in the discussion on WMTC that I referred to in my last post. I'd said that the purpose of any strike was to inflict harm on the employer as a way of convincing the employer to accede to the union's demands, (by demonstrating the monetary value of their work), and that strikes should only inflict harm on the employer. L-girl disagreed and said that strikes were supposed "to be inconvenient for as many people as possible", presumably in order to maximize pressure on the employer.
With respect, I think strikes with such a purpose are unethical. How can a union justify inflicting harm on a third party that is not inflicting harm on the union members? The employer has the power to agree to union demands. Third parties and the public do not, and inflicting harm on someone who lacks the power to give you what you're asking in the hope that they'll put pressure on someone who does have that power is just plain wrong.
The implication of my stance is that strikes or at the very least full strikes should not be conducted on monopolies. To quote my earlier comment:
If Burger King workers go on strike and someone wants a burger they go to Wendy's or White Spot and while Burger King suffers the public is only slightly inconvenienced. If Ford workers go on strike for a better contract, car buyers can go with Honda.In the case of a monopoly, it is impossible to strike without harming third parties, so I don't think strikes should be allowed, but as the National Post pointed out when they argued in their masthead editorial against declaring the Toronto Transit Commission an essential service , the solution is to avoid having monopolies in the first place.
Update: 2:48pm
Of course a strike isn't the only tool a union has at it's disposal. A few years ago, the toll collectors on the Coquihalla highway were negotiating for better pay and rather than strike or shutdown the highway they simply stopped collecting tolls and waved drivers through. Drivers weren't harmed in any way, but the lost revenue was a strong argument for the union.
