> This is a negative stereotype of unions—based on some real-world examples, to be sure, but a stereotype all the same—that has been aggressively pushed as anti

> This is a negative stereotype of unions—based on some real-world examples, to be sure, but a stereotype all the same—that has been aggressively pushed as anti-union propaganda for decades. It would be interesting to see examples of unions that aggressively promote performance based pay -- this is a genuine question. I think an objective view would show that the stereotype is broadly accurate, if not 100% accurate. The reason for this is that we live in a world in which 20% of the people do 80% of the work, but only have 20% of the votes. That is why there is an inherent tension between democracy and fair pay. It's true that this has nothing to do with unions per se, except that unions are the ones to be in a position to vote on pay. One could imagine a different situation, say where the number of votes you have is weighted by your salary when the union first forms, and have negotiations be for total labor expenditure rather than individual worker salaries. Then you can still have a union but it would resist the type of equalization forces by which the best people exit for higher pay outside the union, which ends up being a drag on both the union and the company and causes a lot of firms to oppose unions more than they otherwise would.