Posted by Lew Rockwell at April 11, 2008 08:56 AM
Unions are organized haters of their benefactors, employers. When they do not get their way--more pay for less work--they seek to harm the firm (and non-union workers), often through violence. This time, airline unions used the violence of government to harm their employers. So now airlines like American and Southwest have to jump through impossible bureaucratic-paperwork hoops, leading to vast groundings and harm to passengers. This is exactly what the unions want, since they have all the foresight and ethics of the scorpion in Aesop's story. And now Frontier Airlines has filed for bankruptcy.
Now, at the risk of sounding like one of those wistful Commies ("Well, Stalin failed, to be sure, but we'll do better."), I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with unions. Hmm, let's see, a free association issue, to be sure ("we choose to band together to negotiate on our behalf"), probably even a freedom of contract issue ("I'm gonna hire non-union guys, thanks."). The problem is GOVERNMENT. The problem is not that unions exist, the problem is that unions are mobbed up with the government, getting special privileges. (Oh, and google up the etymology of privilege ---a private law, i.e., differential treatment, hmmmm . . . . )
Lashing out at unions makes as much sense as lashing out at business. Same quest for privileges, same mobbed-up mentality. The problem with American business is not capitalism, it's corporatism.
So there.
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