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In the United States, the oldest traditional trade unions are trade unions, such as carpenters, plumbers, plasterers and other workers'unions. They are also skilled and well-paid workers like doctors. Recently, the fastest-growing unions — indeed, almost the only ones that have grown — are those organized by government workers, including primary and secondary school teachers, police officers, health workers, and various other government employees. New York City's municipal workers' unions showed their strength by pushing the city to the brink of bankruptcy. The case of primary and secondary school teachers and municipal employees illustrates a general principle that has been clearly demonstrated in Britain. Their unions do not deal directly with the taxpayers who pay their members' salaries, but with government officials. The looser the relationship between taxpayers and the government officials with whom unions deal, the stronger the tendency for government officials and unions to collude with each other at the expense of taxpayers-another example of some people using other people's money for third parties. This is why unions of municipal workers in large cities such as New York are more powerful than those in smaller cities, and why unions of primary and secondary school teachers are becoming more powerful as government control of school activities and education funding becomes increasingly centralized and divorced from local government. The British government nationalized more industries than the United States, including the coal industry, utilities, telephones, and hospitals. In Britain's nationalized industrial sector, trade unions are generally particularly strong and labor problems are the most serious. The same causality is reflected in the strength of the United States Postal Workers Union. Assuming that strong unions have higher wages for their members, the obvious question is: Do members get higher wages because the union is strong, or is the union strong because the members get higher wages? Union defenders claim that higher wages for members strengthen the union, and that when all workers are members,wire mesh decking, all workers will receive higher wages. However, the situation is much more complicated. A union of highly skilled workers can undoubtedly raise the wages of its members, but people who are paid well anyway are in a good position to organize a strong union. Moreover, the ability of unions to raise the wages of some workers does not mean that widespread unionism will raise the wages of all workers. On the contrary, this is the root cause of the misconception that strong trade unions can win benefits for their members, first and foremost, at the expense of other workers. The key to understanding this is to understand the most basic principle of economics, the law of demand: the higher the price of something, the fewer people are willing to buy it. Make a certain kind of labor more expensive, and the job opportunities provided by that labor will be reduced. By making carpentry more expensive, fewer houses will be built, asrs warehouse ,heavy duty cantilever racks, and those that are built will use building materials and methods that do not involve much carpentry. Air travel will become more expensive by raising the wages of airline pilots. Fewer people will fly, so there will be fewer jobs for airline pilots. Conversely, if the number of carpenters and pilots is reduced, they will get higher wages. By reducing the number of doctors, they can charge higher fees. A successful union can reduce the number of jobs it controls. As a result, some people who hope to get such jobs on union wages will not be able to achieve their goals. They were forced to turn elsewhere. More workers will seek other jobs, driving down wages for those jobs. Universal unionization will not change this situation. This means higher wages for those who find employment, and at the same time, more unemployment for others. It is more likely that there will be strong unions and weak unions, and that members of strong unions will receive higher wages at the expense of weak union members, as is the case now. Union leaders often say that wages can be raised by reducing profits. This is impossible: there is simply no margin to raise wages. About 80% of the entire national income of the United States is currently spent on wages, salaries and small concessions. More than half of the balance is used to pay rent and interest on loans.
Corporate profits-a point often made by union leaders-total less than 10% of national income. This is the profit before tax. After tax, corporate profits are about 6% of national income. Even if all the profits are invested, it is almost impossible for everyone to receive high wages. Moreover, this is tantamount to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Minimum profits provide an incentive to invest in plant and machinery and to develop new products and new methods. This investment and these innovations have increased the productivity of workers in recent years and have prepared the necessary resources for high and high wages. Raising the wages of some workers is bound to harm others. Nearly three decades ago, one of us estimated that, on average, about 10-15% of workers in our country, through a union or an organization like the American Medical Association, have their wages raised by 10-15%, while another 85-90% of workers have their wages reduced by about 4%. Recent studies have shown that this is still largely the case. The wages of high-wage workers are getting higher and higher, while the wages of low-wage workers are getting lower and lower. Milton Friedman, On the Influence of Trade Unions on Economic Policy, in David McCord Wright, ed., The Influence of Trade Unions (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951), pp. 204-234. More than a decade later, H. g． Lewis, after more detailed and extensive research, arrived at the same estimate, in American Unionism and Comparative Wages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 5. All of us, including people who are highly organized by unions, are indirectly harmed as consumers by the impact of high wages for union members on the price of consumer goods. The price of the house was too high for everyone,Teardrop Pallet Racking, including the carpenter. Unions prevent workers from using their skills to produce the most valuable things, and workers are forced to work in less productive ways. For all of us, the total amount of goods available is less than it should be. jracking.com