3 ms·
> If bargaining asymmetries are the key, why not low skill workers get paid $1million and the management get paid $1k instead, since workers are out numbers and
by djrobstep 5y ago
> If bargaining asymmetries are the key, why not low skill workers get paid $1million and the management get paid $1k instead, since workers are out numbers and they can easily win the bargaining fight?
What a bizarre comment. That is literally the exact opposite of how it works - absent collective action, a larger pool of workers weakens the bargaining position, it doesn't strengthen it.
- temp8964 5y ago? I mean with collective action, not absent.
- jollybean 5y agoCollective action is a complicated thing, and it didn't exist until the dawn of the last century. Remember non land-owning males just got the right to vote about then, along with women shortly thereafter. 'Labour Day' which just happened, is a day to celebrate the rights achieved by Labour in this regard. But even with proper Unions, in most situations, they're not going to be able to compel salaries higher than owners and management - the underlying economic reality of the fact that there are 10 workers to replace every Union worker is a powerful pressure on the fairly artificial nature of Unions. From even the most remotely classically liberal perspective, the idea that 'A factory hires 10 employees, and now those sole 10 employees get to determine the operating terms of the business' is a pretty unnatural construct. Unions have waned at least in part because of much better worker protections and minimum wage, which seems to have solved a great deal of the issues, but of course tension remains and I think the way we do minimum wage (so as to put a floor on the lack of negotiating power of unskilled individuals) is probably not nearly as intelligent as it could be.