To characterize unions-- especially contemporary unions in the United States-- as limited strictly to collective action functions, is factually incomplete and w

To characterize unions-- especially contemporary unions in the United States-- as limited strictly to collective action functions, is factually incomplete and wrong. That unions perform other functions and aim to protect workers in other ways beyond collective action should be a totally uncontroversial statement. Although unions proximately came into existence for the purpose of taking collective action against oppressive employers, it's equally true, and at least as important, to understand that they came into existence in order to fill a regulatory vacuum in labor law. This should prompt some important questions: 1. Should the job of protecting workers from employers properly belong to any entity other than the government? 2. Is filling the regulatory vacuum with regulation theoretically or empirically insufficient to protect workers? 3. Are unions the only means of collective action? 4. Are the functions that unions serve beyond coordinating collective action actually necessary in order to protect workers? Would they still be necessary even if labor law was sufficiently well regulated? My position is this: We should dramatically expand and increase labor regulation and enforcement actions, and we should allow employees to take collective action. Then we should ask ourselves whether unions are still necessary.