Organized labor is more than a political advocacy group.
It creates and protects a monopoly.
Federal and state laws govern wages, overtime, worker safety, on-the-job injuries, discrimination, and much more. One element of the labor movement's work has been advocacy and political action, similar to the ACLU, the NRA, and Planned Parenthood. Organized labor has been successful in shaping employment norms and laws.
That is incomplete. Organized labor gets power in individual workplaces by creating and enforcing a labor monopoly through collective solidarity. Employers either agree to certain conditions or workers agree that nobody works. Employers have expensive capital tied up, contracts to fulfill, and deadlines to meet. If workers won't show up they may face a catastrophe. Unions have power. Unions attempt to limit the supply of workers inside their collective--who can join the union--and then attempt to require employers use only people inside that monopoly. Enforcing that monopoly is difficult. The arrangement is leaky. Unions extract a premium price and come with complications regarding work rules and tradecraft jurisdictions. People either want in the monopoly to enjoy its advantages, or they want around the monopoly.
John Coster shares his personal experience with unions. Coster started out as a 19-year-old licensed electrician with a truck, scrambling for work. Soon he was hiring and managing electricians, both union and non-union, on bigger and bigger jobs. Over his 40-year career, he oversaw the design and construction projects for large energy users including Toyota, Microsoft, TELUS, and CenturyLink.
Guest Post by John Coster
I went to vocational high school in the early 1970s in Massachusetts and trained to be a licensed electrician. My neighbor was a union (IBEW) electrician and it provided a comfortable living for his family on a single income. I thought that was a sweet deal and would be satisfied with that. I finally passed all the tests and got my license, but the IBEW would not have me. It was a private club that tried to control skilled labor supply by limiting membership. But the trade schools kept pumping us out, flooding the market with skilled, ambitious young workers who were willing to work for two thirds the union rate. Non-union contractors could underbid union contractors – which shrunk the union pie of work. It seemed obvious to me that getting to that middle-class life on non-union wages was going to be longer haul.
I moved to California and found that the union would not have me there either. It wasn’t personal; I simply was not from the “tribe.” So, I got my contractor’s license and with funding from a stealth owner, started small jobs that grew to larger jobs. The trouble was that the union had a lock on skilled labor which limited growth, so I enticed a bunch of my non-union electrician buddies from the east coast with union wages. They eagerly came.
These larger projects caught the eye of the local IBEW business agent who began picketing our jobs, and personally threatened my employees and me with violence. It reached a peak where several of my jobs were sabotaged and our job trailers set fire. Guys with baseball bats greeted my truck at the non-union gate. I was out of my depth. Remember, I was just a young guy trying to make a living with my trade, and all I wanted was a job. I did not see unions as my friend.
A court-order put an end to the picketing, and the project owners added measures of security. More non-union contractors started up and, like the Massachusetts story, the union share of the work shrank. My company grew beyond my managerial abilities, and the “stealth owner” hired an experienced manager who could grow the business (a good thing) and we parted ways. That was over 40 years ago.
Imagine what might have happened if the unions had gotten us to organize instead of lock us out? I think that’s what’s happening now. The IBEW is now hungry for willing entrants and skilled talent. Ironically, the buyers of that company I started 40 years ago proudly announced they have recently signed an agreement with the IBEW. I should call and congratulate them.
My oldest son graduated from high school in Iowa in the late '90's. He had completed a 2 year course there which culminated in the students building a house. He learned all aspects of the construction trades. It was great, as he was very intelligent, but not interested in traditional academics. After graduation he wanted to become an electrician, and the local union wouldn't allow him in, claiming "there were already too many electricians". Considering the nationwide shortage of those in the trades we are currently experiencing, it was a poor decision on their part. This post reminded me of that.