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Some of us have seen the exorbitant damage corporations can cause, for example Exxon et al knowingly destroying the planet in a bid to extract profit. No organ
by brightstep 5y ago
Some of us have seen the exorbitant damage corporations can cause, for example Exxon et al knowingly destroying the planet in a bid to extract profit.
No organization is inherently good. Unions can be led by bad actors, and that doesn't diminish their overall value. They provide employees with a countervailing force to use against employers who would otherwise be mostly free to squeeze them for every penny, whether via cut wages, unpaid overtime, etc.
- sershe 5y agoMonopolistic organizations of all kinds tend to be bad. The corporate monopolies are frowned upon and at least in theory, and sometimes in practice, curbed by the government. Union monopolies are actively protected by the government. If the unions operated more like competing guilds with low barrier to entry and anti-monopoly rules similar to corporations, and rules were e.g. you can only hire factory workers from a union but there are 5 competing unions in town, there could be an argument for their usefulness. As such they are about as evil (especially in the public sector where there's no competition pretty much by definition) as if e.g. Google had legal monopoly on internet search. Or Exxon had legal monopoly on oil production and unquestioning government support.