Ezra Klein, in his response to my post on the union wage premium, directed our attention to this article about the union wage premium in service industries. The paper does find a wage premium, and in doing so offers up some juicy bits:
Our
research suggests that unions usually have little power to inhibit subcontracting
altogether, but that they can sometimes mitigate its negative effects
on their members. The
hardest trend to fight has been the outsourcing of labor-intensive kitchen
tasks – baking, cleaning and chopping produce, making stocks and sauces.
The purchasing of prepared foods has become such a ubiquitous and fundamental
business strategy in the industry that it has been almost impossible
for unions to stop it. In the end, the economics of using pre-prepared
food are simply too compelling, and because the outsourcing is usually
done piece-meal, the union would have to fight over just one or two
jobs at a time. However, when the numbers of jobs involved are bigger
and the economic advantages less clear – for example, subcontracting
an entire laundry unit – unions have been able to focus their efforts
and have had somewhat more success, slowing the process down or limiting
it.
Yes I can see the resulting wage premium within the union, but is this a good way to advance the state of the working man in the United States?
If liberals were serious about generally helping the American blue collar worker make more money, they’d be trying to cut back on illegal immigration. Instead, they just want to increase the number of people highly dependent upon the Democratic Party for political power to keep their union wage-premium going.
is this a good way to advance the state of the working man in the United States?
Sure. Economic actors (like, say, employees) doing everything in their power to negotiate the best deal possible, to squeeze every last dime out of everyone around them, is commonly called “economic efficiency”. Just because it happens to be employees, rather than firms, doing the squeezing doesn’t change the point.
This is quite similar to the clever insight Tyler had a few days ago that there are actually plenty of full-bore labour-owned firms. They’re called “law firms” and “management consultancies”.
If liberals were serious about generally helping the American blue collar worker make more money, they’d be trying to cut back on illegal immigration.
AWESOME troll. *golf clap*
Seriously Andrew, if you’re actually in favor of increasing wages for blue collar workers, then reducing labor supply should increase the price of labor, i.e., wages. Stopping illegal immigration is an obvious technique to reduce the size of the labor market.
Seriously Andrew, if you’re actually in favor of increasing wages for blue collar workers, then reducing labor supply should increase the price of labor, i.e., wages.
I understand that. However:
1) Tyler’s post mentioned “liberals” zero times. And “the Democratic party” zero times. Steve’s post didn’t need to mention them to make his basic point. To do so was needlessly inflammatory.
2) Another good way to raise the income of “the blue collar worker” would be to give every “blue collar worker” a fistful of diamonds and a pony. However, no one proposes this because it is bad policy. Similarly, it’s spurious and needlessly inflammatory to accuse “liberals” of hypocrisy for failing to support a measure that (a) would increase the wages of “the working man” but (b) is viewed by them as bad policy for other reasons.
3) To extend the point into the-Democrats-are-in-the-pockets-of-big-labour was so far from the point of the original post, and so dismissive of the possibility that many of one’s political opponents are actually trying to do good (albeit imperfectly trying), that the comment was an obvious troll.
Andrew cliams:
“Tyler’s post mentioned “liberals” zero times. And “the Democratic party” zero times. Steve’s post didn’t need to mention them to make his basic point. To do so was needlessly inflammatory.”
The first two words in Tyler’s post are “Ezra Klein,” who is a liberal Democrat.
Keith, that is not why Ezra Klein is in favor of unions, and you know it. He’s in favor of unions because he thinks they’re necessary to balance the power of employers over employees, and because he believes that, on balance, they raise the standard of living of American wage-earners — in other words, the wage premiums earned by union workers are larger than the price increases, etc., paid by other workers. He may be wrong about this, but he’s not corrupt, and it’s a pathetic critique to suggest that he is.
K. Williams claims:
“Keith, that is not why Ezra Klein is in favor of unions, and you know it. He’s in favor of unions because he thinks they’re necessary to balance the power of employers over employees, and because he believes that, on balance, they raise the standard of living of American wage-earners”
We could help the American wage-earner more directly by cutting back on unskilled immigration, but immigration helps Democrats, so liberals aren’t in favor of that. What they are in favor of are cartels (unions) that are dependent on government power and therefore contribute money and votes to Democrats.
Paul Glastris of the Washington Monthly inadvertently supported Sailer’s argument here: we have to stomach the bad aspects of unions because they are good for the democratic party.
Comments on this entry are closed.