Personally, I think that unions are overregulated on both sides. If the air traffic controllers want to go on strike, of course that should be legal. And if the government wants to fire them for it, of course that should be legal, too. If the union’s demands that led to the strike were reasonable, then the employer will have a hard time finding replacements for them that will be willing to work without those demands, and hence will think twice about firing them, and if the demands were unreasonable, then there’s no sense crying over the firing.
Similarly, I see no problem with mixed shops, where anyone who wants can join the union or not, and the union negotiates on behalf of its own members, and non-members are on their own for negotiating their terms. If the union is good at negotiating terms for its members, then other workers will want to join, and if they’re not good at it, then other workers won’t.
It seems that all too often, one side or the other gains power, and puts in place silly regulations to benefit their side, and then when the pendulum swings the other way, instead of eliminating those silly regulations, the other side tries to counter them with their own silly regulations.
The federal government is not a free market. If they pay their employees more, you have to pay more taxes. You can’t take your business over to the government next door.
In this case the union had no right to strike, which was entirely the point. Now, you can debate whether it should have been illegal, but it was.
I think that PATCO figured they wouldn’t be fired because of the lead time that would be needed to hire and train new controllers, and a mass firing would be worse than a mere strike. They miscalculated.
In some cases, people do just that! Look at Illinois. They had budget woes when I moved there. People who are now retired had negotiated, years ago, with other people’s money, e.g. mine. But then I left and took my money with me. So have and are a lot of other folks. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ILPOP
But it’s a bit harder with the federal government.
I agree with this as well. I never understand when unions say “We are helping those workers and they aren’t paying dues”. Well, stop helping them, and make your organization something they want to join willingly.
As far as I know, that’s illegal in the USA. If the definition of the bargaining unit includes you, the union represents you regardless of what anybody (you, the employer, or the union) wants.
The juxtaposition of “public employee unions have the government over a barrel!” and the recent stories of the rate of pay for West Virginia teachers is absolutely shocking. If someone knew nothing of the United States, and read some of the posts in this thread, they might conclude that unionized teachers are on easy street, with the taxpayers being absolutely soaked out of every last penny.
It’s like the panhandlers who squeegee one’s car windshield without one asking them to, then demanding that you pay them - but also that they have the force of law on their side.
Suppose 55% of employees vote to unionize and a union forms which represents 55% of the workers. Now the union is trying to negotiate new terms. The management knows that even if they strike there will still be 45% of the workers in place. The management is going to take a much harder line if they’re facing 55% of the workforce going on strike versus a situation where 100% of the workforce might go on strike.
So the union’s ability to negotiate terms for their members is itself a consequence of the closed shop. This is why having a closed shop is such a big deal for unions.
In my state at least, workers do not have to belong to the union, but they have to pay dues, and then the union is supposed to give back the amount of the dues that they did not spend on negotiation. Of course the unions try to make you jump thru all kinds of hoops and stall or pretend, but that’s the theory.