|
|
|
|
|
|
as to overestimate their importance. I once made a rough estimate that because of unions something like 10 to 15 per cent of the working population has had its wage rates raised by something like 10 to 15 per cent. This means that something like 85 or 90 per cent of the working population has had its wage rates reduced by some 4 per cent.2 Since I made these estimates, much more detailed studies have been done by others. My impression is that they yield results of much the same order of magnitude. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If unions raise wage rates in a particular occupation or industry, they necessarily make the amount of employment available in that occupation or industry less than it otherwise would bejust as any higher price cuts down the amount purchased. The effect is an increased number of persons seeking other jobs, which forces down wages in other occupations. Since unions have generally been strongest among groups that would have been high-paid anyway, their effect has been to make high-paid workers higher paid at the expense of lower-paid workers. Unions have therefore not only harmed the public at large and workers as a whole by distorting the use of labor; they have also made the incomes of the working class more unequal by reducing the opportunities available to the most disadvantaged workers. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In one respect, there is an important difference between labor and enterprise monopoly. While there seems not to have been any upward trend in the importance of enterprise monopoly over the past half-century, there certainly has been in the importance of labor monopoly. Labor unions grew notably in importance during World War I, declined during the 'twenties and early 'thirties, then took an enormous leap forward during the New Deal period. They consolidated their gains during and after World War II. More recently, they have been just holding their own or even declining. The decline does not reflect a decline within particular industries or occupations but rather a declining importance of those industries or occupations in which unions are strong relative to those in which unions are weak. |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
2 ''Some Comments on the Significance of Labor Unions for Economic Policy," in David McCord Wright (ed.), The Impact of the Union (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951), pp. 20434. |
|
|
|
|
|