3 ms·

If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Which may not be surprising as high inflation discourages saving, meaning that people

If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Which may not be surprising as high inflation discourages saving, meaning that people are more likely to buy the things they want now to not have to pay much more later, which results in businesses increasing production to fill the increased demand, requiring more labour, and thus labour finds itself in a stronger position. As the only power unions wield is the threat of stoppage of service, the workers have to be in a strong enough financial position to be able to execute on that – to be able to live without an income for months, if not years – in order to make it a credible threat. This is why unions are typically only found in high paying professions, but during periods where the general labour pool grows stronger then that expands.

Quarrelsome 4y ago
> If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Indeed, I think we could argue inflation is a cause of unionisation as opposed to our OP's position where it is implied that unionisation leads to inflation.
trashtester 4y ago
> to be able to live without an income for months, if not years – in order to make it a credible threat. That depends on what service they represent. Those who provide critical services (garbage removal, truck drivers, police, utilities, healthcare, grocery store workers) may make their absence felt very quickly. Also, anyone able to block a key element in a longer supply chain can cause a lot of damage quickly. It's all about the ability to completely paralyze access to something essential. Let's say every employee at every data center in the US were striking belonged to the same union, and all went on strike at the same time, shutting down all hardware and staying on site to prevent anyone from turning it back on. The effect would be instant and catastrophic. If there was no way to bring them back, society would collapse in days or hours. Most likely, the police would be used against them (like it was against factory workers in the early 1900s). It's all about how coordinated, ruthless and willing to risk ignoring the wrath of the employers and government the unions are, as well as how much support they have from the general population. Not that I'm expecting something this extreme anytime soon. It's more of an illustation of how powerful a strike can be, if taken to he maximum. Since around WW2, strikes have become more of a ritualistic dance, with rules for how far to take the conflict. Such rules sometimes change, though. And the willingness to escalate conflicts seem to be on the rise. > If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Anyway, I don't disagree that unionization and also union activity level (much of Europe is already unionized) is increased by inflation. My point is that the labor market conflicts can ALSO cause inflation. And if something is both the cause and the effect of something, then you have a positive feedback loop.
- randomdata 4y ago
  > shutting down all hardware While there are no doubt jurisdictional variances, unions are typically absolved of responsibility to incidental damage to company property, but purposefully damaging company property is unlikely to stand up. If the machines start to fail without oversight that's one thing, but purposefully shutting them down conveys an explicit intent. > Most likely, the police would be used against them No doubt. Such malice is most likely illegal. If the police aren't going to step in when someone is breaking the law, what purpose do they serve? > society would collapse in days or hours. You'd really better have your ducks in a row if you're going to cause society to collapse. That's going to require an incredible amount of money upfront. After society has collapsed it will be too late to prepare. So once again, you can't reasonably do this unless you're already rich. > much of Europe is already unionized Colour me skeptical. Canada is claimed to be the 6th most unionized country in the world and only ~25% of its workforce is unionized. There are 44 countries in Europe, according to the UN. This suggests that very few workers in Europe are in unions. Maybe I misinterpret what you are trying to say? > My point is that the labor market conflicts can ALSO cause inflation. Inflation can only occur if a currency loses value. What mechanism of labour conflict causes a currency to lose value (or lose more value than it would have otherwise)? If anything, I would expect currency to become more valuable as it becomes harder to attain during labour withdrawals. The labour of industrialization doesn't go back that far in time so we don't have an incredible amount of data to look at, but from what data we do have it would appear that high inflation always precedes union growth. Which, again, seems expected as workers become stronger during the beginnings of high inflation due to the reasons explained above. Where do we find counterexamples?
  - trashtester 4y ago
    > but purposefully damaging company property is unlikely to stand up. I'm not sure exactly what the ruling would be, but I would see this as the same as a factory worker stopping the machine he operates. Shutting down a machine is not the same as destroying it. >> society would collapse in days or hours. > You'd really better have your ducks in a row if you're going to cause society to collapse. That's going to require an incredible amount of money upfront. After society has collapsed it will be too late to prepare. So once again, you can't reasonably do this unless you're already rich. By "collapse", I meant a lot of stuff would stop functioning, most temporarily so. > Colour me skeptical. Canada is claimed to be the 6th most unionized country in the world and only ~25% of its workforce is unionized. I did look it up. In my part of Europe (Scandinavia), every country has >50% of the workforce in unions. But it varies a lot by country, so I have to retract my generic statement. Still, most European countries have way more unionized workers than the USA. > Inflation can only occur if a currency loses value. Inflation (defined by the CPI) happens when there demand for goods and services exceed supply. As prices go up, aggregate demand will gradually decrease until balance is restored. If this is met by increasing wages, though, demand increases again, bringing the PCI with it, if supply constrained. > Inflation can only occur if a currency loses value. What mechanism of labour conflict causes a currency to lose value (or lose more value than it would have otherwise)? Currency has no "essential" value. The value of the currency is defined by what you can buy with it now and what you expect to be able to buy with it in the future. Inflation happens demand for goods and services exceed supply. > If anything, I would expect currency to become more valuable as it becomes harder to attain during labour withdrawals. That depends on whether it affects supply or demand for goods and services more. If supply goes down more than demand, it causes inflation (people that go on strike, typically have savings, either personal or in their union). If demand goes down more than supply, it may temporarily reduce it. However, if strikes are successful in leading to wage increases, that will also cause inflation. > The labour of industrialization doesn't go back that far in time so we don't have an incredible amount of data to look at, but from what data we do have it would appear that high inflation always precedes union growth. This may or may not be true, as a rule of thumb. Though I'm sure a lot of people also joined unions during deflationary periods around 1930. But even if we assume you're right, it doesn't mean that unions (or rather certain actions commonly taken by unions) can ALSO serve to increase inflation. Now as someone who lives in a country with more than 50% of the workforce unionized, it seems self-evident to me that unions drive prices up in several different ways. Not only through wages, but also through demanding all sorts of regulations to protect workers. Also, for the record, I'm not making the argument that those things are all bad. Many union leaders act quite responsibly, and often cooperate with employers and the government to prevent excessive demands. But unions are ultimately controlled by their members, not leaders. And it's a lot harder to make them accept a 5-10% loss of purchasing power than to stop them from demanding a wage increase that is 5-10% higher than what is sustainable when times are good. Anyway, my prediction is that we're likely to have more labor market conflicts in 2023 in many places than we've seen since the 80s or even 70s. Time will tell if I'm right.

Quarrelsome 4y ago

> If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Indeed, I think we could argue inflation is a cause of unionisation as opposed to our OP's position where it is implied that unionisation leads to inflation.

trashtester 4y ago

> to be able to live without an income for months, if not years – in order to make it a credible threat. That depends on what service they represent. Those who provide critical services (garbage removal, truck drivers, police, utilities, healthcare, grocery store workers) may make their absence felt very quickly. Also, anyone able to block a key element in a longer supply chain can cause a lot of damage quickly. It's all about the ability to completely paralyze access to something essential. Let's say every employee at every data center in the US were striking belonged to the same union, and all went on strike at the same time, shutting down all hardware and staying on site to prevent anyone from turning it back on. The effect would be instant and catastrophic. If there was no way to bring them back, society would collapse in days or hours. Most likely, the police would be used against them (like it was against factory workers in the early 1900s). It's all about how coordinated, ruthless and willing to risk ignoring the wrath of the employers and government the unions are, as well as how much support they have from the general population. Not that I'm expecting something this extreme anytime soon. It's more of an illustation of how powerful a strike can be, if taken to he maximum. Since around WW2, strikes have become more of a ritualistic dance, with rules for how far to take the conflict. Such rules sometimes change, though. And the willingness to escalate conflicts seem to be on the rise. > If anything, it seems that increased unionization lags behind inflation. Anyway, I don't disagree that unionization and also union activity level (much of Europe is already unionized) is increased by inflation. My point is that the labor market conflicts can ALSO cause inflation. And if something is both the cause and the effect of something, then you have a positive feedback loop.

randomdata 4y ago
> shutting down all hardware While there are no doubt jurisdictional variances, unions are typically absolved of responsibility to incidental damage to company property, but purposefully damaging company property is unlikely to stand up. If the machines start to fail without oversight that's one thing, but purposefully shutting them down conveys an explicit intent. > Most likely, the police would be used against them No doubt. Such malice is most likely illegal. If the police aren't going to step in when someone is breaking the law, what purpose do they serve? > society would collapse in days or hours. You'd really better have your ducks in a row if you're going to cause society to collapse. That's going to require an incredible amount of money upfront. After society has collapsed it will be too late to prepare. So once again, you can't reasonably do this unless you're already rich. > much of Europe is already unionized Colour me skeptical. Canada is claimed to be the 6th most unionized country in the world and only ~25% of its workforce is unionized. There are 44 countries in Europe, according to the UN. This suggests that very few workers in Europe are in unions. Maybe I misinterpret what you are trying to say? > My point is that the labor market conflicts can ALSO cause inflation. Inflation can only occur if a currency loses value. What mechanism of labour conflict causes a currency to lose value (or lose more value than it would have otherwise)? If anything, I would expect currency to become more valuable as it becomes harder to attain during labour withdrawals. The labour of industrialization doesn't go back that far in time so we don't have an incredible amount of data to look at, but from what data we do have it would appear that high inflation always precedes union growth. Which, again, seems expected as workers become stronger during the beginnings of high inflation due to the reasons explained above. Where do we find counterexamples?
- trashtester 4y ago
  > but purposefully damaging company property is unlikely to stand up. I'm not sure exactly what the ruling would be, but I would see this as the same as a factory worker stopping the machine he operates. Shutting down a machine is not the same as destroying it. >> society would collapse in days or hours. > You'd really better have your ducks in a row if you're going to cause society to collapse. That's going to require an incredible amount of money upfront. After society has collapsed it will be too late to prepare. So once again, you can't reasonably do this unless you're already rich. By "collapse", I meant a lot of stuff would stop functioning, most temporarily so. > Colour me skeptical. Canada is claimed to be the 6th most unionized country in the world and only ~25% of its workforce is unionized. I did look it up. In my part of Europe (Scandinavia), every country has >50% of the workforce in unions. But it varies a lot by country, so I have to retract my generic statement. Still, most European countries have way more unionized workers than the USA. > Inflation can only occur if a currency loses value. Inflation (defined by the CPI) happens when there demand for goods and services exceed supply. As prices go up, aggregate demand will gradually decrease until balance is restored. If this is met by increasing wages, though, demand increases again, bringing the PCI with it, if supply constrained. > Inflation can only occur if a currency loses value. What mechanism of labour conflict causes a currency to lose value (or lose more value than it would have otherwise)? Currency has no "essential" value. The value of the currency is defined by what you can buy with it now and what you expect to be able to buy with it in the future. Inflation happens demand for goods and services exceed supply. > If anything, I would expect currency to become more valuable as it becomes harder to attain during labour withdrawals. That depends on whether it affects supply or demand for goods and services more. If supply goes down more than demand, it causes inflation (people that go on strike, typically have savings, either personal or in their union). If demand goes down more than supply, it may temporarily reduce it. However, if strikes are successful in leading to wage increases, that will also cause inflation. > The labour of industrialization doesn't go back that far in time so we don't have an incredible amount of data to look at, but from what data we do have it would appear that high inflation always precedes union growth. This may or may not be true, as a rule of thumb. Though I'm sure a lot of people also joined unions during deflationary periods around 1930. But even if we assume you're right, it doesn't mean that unions (or rather certain actions commonly taken by unions) can ALSO serve to increase inflation. Now as someone who lives in a country with more than 50% of the workforce unionized, it seems self-evident to me that unions drive prices up in several different ways. Not only through wages, but also through demanding all sorts of regulations to protect workers. Also, for the record, I'm not making the argument that those things are all bad. Many union leaders act quite responsibly, and often cooperate with employers and the government to prevent excessive demands. But unions are ultimately controlled by their members, not leaders. And it's a lot harder to make them accept a 5-10% loss of purchasing power than to stop them from demanding a wage increase that is 5-10% higher than what is sustainable when times are good. Anyway, my prediction is that we're likely to have more labor market conflicts in 2023 in many places than we've seen since the 80s or even 70s. Time will tell if I'm right.