[EL] Serious Question About Knox v. SEIU

[Douglas R. Hess]

But your argument doesn't require the market/consumer analogy. More
importantly, I was responding to the idea that suppliers of insurance on a
market are similar to a union, that unions are monopolies, etc.

 

Doug

 

From: Larry Levine [mailto:larrylevine at earthlink.net] 
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 8:45 PM
To: 'Doug Hess'; law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: RE: [EL] Serious Question About Knox v. SEIU

 

I think the drawing of a less than perfect analogy stems from frustration
with the stupefying decision that many see as anti-worker and heavily
favoring political entities that would destroy unions for the purpose of
weakening employee units and in turn depriving workers of benefits they
currently have largely because of the success of earlier efforts by
organized labor. While people are not "consumers" of the union, they
certainly are consumers of the benefits of union efforts. Would those who
claim to be non-consumers of the union and unwilling to share in the cost of
the common effort be willing to forego all of the benefits union members
enjoy because of their participation in the union effort? I think not. I
think they are simply making a political statement and possibly a greedy
statement that they can make with no negative consequences. If you asked me
if I would like the coverage I have now under my auto insurance policy
without having to pay the premium I would answer "of course." Ask the worker
if he or she would be willing to work for minimum wage, with no paid sick
leave or vacation time, no paid holidays, etc. if that were the result of
withhold all or a portion of his or her union dues and see what the answer
would be.

Larry 

 

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Doug
Hess
Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 2:50 PM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Serious Question About Knox v. SEIU

 

 

The comparison of unions to market suppliers is mind boggling. You aren't
"buying" from a union. Unions are not "monopolists." Union members are not
"consumers" of the union. Etc. 

 

A labor union is a political-economic entity of a community; it is not a
"firm" in the sense of an provider of goods and services in a market.
Indeed, the organizational problems of labor unions seem to stem from their
corporatist structure: slow to change, tendency to hierarchical pathways for
communication and dispute resolution, etc.. (I am using the word corporatist
here as a description of a kind of organization (the older sense fo the
word) and not as a description of a way to organize society broadly.) Just
one more example of how the analogy fails: Ideally, a union (like government
and some other forms of association) is open to kinds of participation that
market entities rarely are.

 

Many associations are not best compared to market entities. My condo
building has a condominium association that levies fees to keep things
running in the common areas of the building, to improve shared aspects of
the structure, insure the building, etc. It is not a monopoly. Building
residents are not best thought of as "consumers" in a market. Technically
they own shares, so they are owners of a nonprofit, but the building has
become a much friendlier place to live once we got people to realize that
the best description of the relationship is that the association is a
collection of members of a community that are managing their affairs as a
community. 

 

The market analogy, like all analogies, should be applied where apt. Not
everying is best understood by resorting to half-remembered lessons about
free market institutions. 

 

[Indeed, if you go that route you should run into the argument that
governments (the polis) intervenes in the governance of insurace services
because of market failures; that is, the inability of market relations alone
to provide for certain goods. I.e., we have decided (even if not always
explicitly stated this way) that people have some rights as community
members to a well functioning relationship with systems of insurance against
risk. This takes insurance partially out of the market goods analogy, too.
Although, again, unions were never there to start with; they are better seen
as an attempt to form a polis around a community at the workplace or based
on position in the large economy. ]

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