Two things: 1. Many labor organizations do not consider police and prison guard unions to be legitimate labor unions, because police represent and enforce the

Two things: 1. Many labor organizations do not consider police and prison guard unions to be legitimate labor unions, because police represent and enforce the interests of the ruling class not of the labor class and have historically been weaponized footsoldiers brought in specifically to brutalize organized labor movements. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-to-know-police-unions-labor-movement https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-to-know-police-unions-l... has a moderately good exposition of the subject. If you don't like overt editorial politicization, skip the first paragraph. 2. I think you have to clarify what you mean by "competitive". If you start from the premise that no advancement or profit is worth stepping on the necks of people with less power, then the only metric that makes sense for evaluating organized labor is fair treatment of the laborers. You will _of_course_ get more coal out of the ground faster and cheaper if, for instance, you use slaves or have zero rules protecting the health and safety of the miners. But you get that exactly by abusing the health and safety of the miners. So does one value cheap coal or not killing people? If one values only price above all else, then of course treating laborers well comes at a cost. I don't think we have a general sense that Chinese labor is treated well despite being an economic powerhouse because everything from there is cheaper and we just _really_ love to externalize costs. Also, don't we regularly have scandals where steel from China fails to meet some quality standard and causes bridges and buildings to collapse? Is it competitive to produce something dangerous for less money? If less up-front cost is the primary goal, then yes. Should that be the goal?