4 ms·

I don't understand why Right to work laws are bad, maybe you can explain. If I am looking for a job at a company and I don't agree with the unions politics, hig

• vkou 9y ago
  > If I am looking for a job at a company and I don't agree with the unions politics, high fees, etc. and I would like to make the contract between me and my employer by myself, what is wrong with that. That employer already entered a contract with another group of people, that lists them as a sole supplier of labour for said employer. Imagine if I had a cabbage farm. I don't care about corporate politics, I just want Whole Foods to buy cabbages from me. But they won't. They already have an exclusive supplier contract for cabbages with Dole, or Sunrise Produce, or whatever. Is this unfair? I don't like it? That's my problem. I should not be demanding that there be a law that forbids sole suppliers, of cabbages, or labour. If I still want to sell cabbages, I should talk to Dole, Sunrise Produce, or start my own grocery store. Or negotiate a new contract with Whole Foods, after their current contract expires. Providing services to an organization isn't a god-given right. If you don't like the working environment, the requirements of the job, the pay, or the hoops you have to jump through to sell to a company, that's your problem. Go work for a non-union shop, or start your own company. > They let two independent people make an employment agreement without anything interfering with them. If one of those two people entered into an agreement with a third party, that lists the third party as a sole supplier of services for them, that's your problem. The law should allow that person to make such an agreement with said third party, to the detriment of you. That's the libertarian response. They are bad because they stop people from entering into voluntary contracts. The socialist argument is that they are bad because employment negotiation is not done on a person-to person level. It is done on an organization to person level. The organization has more power, and this power imbalance produces unfair contracts. This imbalance is solved when you allow employees to negotiate as an organization. Right to work laws let scabs and freeloaders parasitically leech off the negotiations of others, without paying into the system that benefits them. The only way to deal with that is to exclude them.
  • akkat 9y ago
    So if I understand correctly all that the right to work laws do is forbid companies from making a contract that requires them to hire exclusively from one union. I was under the impression that a majority of the workers of a company can unionise and then require every other worker in the company to join the union. If you are correct then I can see why right to work laws are not so good. However, keep in mind that there are many laws preventing people from entering certain contracts. Such as laws forbidding a person to work at a company if the company doesn't want to pay minimum wage, or offering to give someone some money but requiring that they pay back a large amount in a set amount of time.
    • vkou 9y ago
      Almost! They do two things. 1. Make it illegal to have an exclusivity contract. 2. Make every concession that a union gets out of their employer apply to non-union employees. [1] This would be like Dole getting a special deal with Whole Foods... And a "Right-to-sell" law would mandate that the terms of that agreement would also apply to me - even though I was not a party to those negotiations. > I was under the impression that a majority of the workers of a company can unionise and then require every other worker in the company to join the union. That would be the case in a truly free market, if the employer entered into an agreement with the union that going forward, it would only employ union people. The employer's not compelled to do that - it does so by choice. > If you are correct then I can see why right to work laws are not so good. However, keep in mind that there are many laws preventing people from entering certain contracts. Such as laws forbidding a person to work at a company if the company doesn't want to pay minimum wage, or offering to give someone some money but requiring that they pay back a large amount in a set amount of time. I agree. You have rights, some of which you can't sign away - for instance, it would be illegal to discriminate against someone based on race, despite the existence of a contract to the contrary. Contracts aren't entirely absolute, and this gets complicated quickly. There's also questions of monopolies, which libertarians generally do not oppose, but other people do. [1] The obvious consequence is that the game-theory optimal strategy for everyone is to not join a union.
      • 9y ago