looking for economic inefficenies to help in a research paper ;detailed or just any ideas would help. this paper is for an intermediate micro class. thanks!
2006-10-12 15:07:20 · 6 answers · asked by mcnult345 1 in Social Science ➔ Economics
Well, the non-economic aspects include the political bias (your Union dues inevitably go to support candidates you can't stand) and the inevitable corruption and nepotism resulting from a system where less qualified workers can lock into above-market wages, usually because they're someone's brother in law.
The economic implications are twofold: first, people are paying more for union-made products. This makes union products less competitive in the global marketplace. This is becoming increasingly problematic as China and India become serious competitors.
Second, unions distort the labor market: artificially high union wages mean fewer people get hired. A company that otherwise would hire a hundred workers will make do with 80. The twenty extra workers compete for the jobs on the open market. This increases the supply of labor, shifting the supply curve forward, resulting in a further decline in wages for those in the labor market. On a large enough scale, inflated wages for union workers result in lower wages for the rest of us poor slobs.
2006-10-13 00:51:21 · answer #1 · answered by Freedom 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Bottom line is unions are mismanaged. Otherwise they wouldn't produce inefficiencies in the labor market.
1. Unions protect the least productive highest cost lowest skill workers at the expense of all the others.
2. Silly work rules that drain away productivity without actually creating a safer, happier, more productive work environment.
If unions actually did what they claim, employers would be fighting over the union employees. Which is furnish productive workers who show up on time and get the job done.
2006-10-12 23:37:43 · answer #2 · answered by Roadkill 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There is also something else to consider here. Unions charge huge dues to belong to them. Many times, these dues are being aimed at the lowest paid workers while they are being convinced that they'll be paid better for belonging. And, when the union decides to strike, you have to strike. This happened during the most recent UPS strike. One particular location was happy and had no complaints and voted to keep working. The national union came in and set up a picket line forcing the content work force to stay off the job. I'd much rather negotiate my own rate of pay and quality of work than have it dictated by some union standard. One person I personally knew, would spend 2 to 3 hours of dead time on the job because his quota for the day was finished and his union wouldn't allow the employer to pay extra as incentive for working harder. This hurt the employer in decreased productivity and the employee with less money in his pocket.
2006-10-13 01:34:48 · answer #3 · answered by iuneedscoachknight 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They create rigidities in the real wage, or conversly rigidities in the nominal wage. Either produce distortions so that either the labor market or the goods market does not clear.
I would focus on the German labor market. Everyone in Germany is represented by a union except managers and all businesses must put employees on the board. The result is high unemployment. It is virtually impossible to fire anyone so it is virtually impossible to hire people, regardles of available demand.
2006-10-12 23:27:37 · answer #4 · answered by OPM 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Unions can make it difficult to fire bad employees. Bad employees decrease productivity.
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2006-10-12 23:06:26 · answer #5 · answered by Zak 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they drive up wages, so companies feel forced to relocate overseas, and their members can start looking for jobs flipping hamburgers and pumping gas
2006-10-12 22:18:38 · answer #6 · answered by acid tongue 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋