Against the real enemy: why organized labor should join with entrepreneurs

Unions on both sides of the Atlantic have made huge strategic errors in the last three decades that have eroded much of their influence, relevance and power.

Embracing enterprise and entrepreneurs in a deep way would a massive stride forward. I don't see it happening though. Finding a common enemy to unite against is one thing, but the fundamental shift in outlook required to go beyond that is something else altogether.

Labo(u)r will find other ways to organize in the 21st century instead forming/joining 20th century style unions.

The author spends a lot of the article wondering about why Big Labor seems to be whiffing so many obvious opportunities (joining with entrepreneurs is the hook but it's really just one special case of the larger point), but the answer is obvious once you drop the theory for a moment and look at the reality: Big Labor leadership is not the same as Big Labor membership. Leadership has long since become its own entity, and succumbed to the first law of organizations: All organizations inevitably evolve until the perpetuation of their own existence becomes their overriding priority. Big Labor and Big Business are adversarial, certainly, I don't think claiming they are in cahoots adequately explains the behavior we see, but they do require the same basic environment to exist in. Which the article itself points out, but since he's collapsed the two distinct entities into one he isn't quite able to follow through on what it means.

It probably is in the interests of the membership to join with and support entrepreneurs. It is absolutely not in the interest of the leadership to do so.

(I know there is more than one union; I speak in the singular for convenience. In practice it seems to me pretty much every union you've ever heard of is all in the same place.)

The author also trots out the terrible "voting against their best interests" argument (insulting those who don't believe what you do is generally an unpersuasive argument technique) after three pages of explaining how supporting unions has failed to produce the best outcome, the irony apparently lost on the author. I don't vote Democrat precisely because I do not believe it to be in my best interests. I believe with what is IMHO some justification that they tend to trade short-term gains for long term losses, and tend to simply create new entrenched interests instead of protecting mine. I live in Michigan, where the long term losses have arrived. A lot of people have voted their "best interests" around here. Perhaps less insulting and more verification that it really is their "best interests" being served is in order. Second order effects can't be ignored.

The real point of the preceding paragraphs not being to prove that my beliefs are true, as justifying them here would be a waste of time, but that the assumption that not voting Democrat must be motivated by stupidity and lack of self-interest is not fully justified. There are good reasons not to vote Democrat. (There are good reasons not to vote any particular party.)

(Oh, and don't mentally translate "I don't vote Democrat" to "I vote Republican", BTW. It would not be accurate.)

huh. funny, 'cause my understanding that the basic ideas organized labor fights for (e.g. pay based on seniority rather than perceived merit, no firings without a well-documented good reason that involves the employee not following the rules and protectionism on the international front) Are largely incompatible with what most Entrepreneurs need.

I mean, this is my perception, and it may be incorrect, but I think it's a pretty common perception among business owners.

And really, when you get down to it, small businesses and entrepreneurs, generally speaking, treat employees much worse than even union-free large businesses. Larger companies do a lot of the things unions want simply because there are hoards of lawyers willing to jump on them if it even looks like they might have a case. I mean, sure, you could bring a wrongful termination case against, say, me... but you'd have a difficult time finding a lawyer to take it on a percentage of the winnings; you can't get blood from a stone, and my company just isn't worth that much.

This article is silly. Entrepreneurs and unions are natural enemies.

A dynamic entrepreneurial environment is the last thing unions want. In a competitive market with many players and new startups improving things regularly, the union shop will have higher costs than their competitors and they will go out of business. Even if costs are equal right now, a startup will come along and disrupt the industry, destroying any business with rigid contracts.

And if entrepreneurs work with unions, they are playing with fire. What happens when a startup invents the UnionLaborTron (a machine which replaces union laborers)? Work rules incompatible with rapid iteration. My startup employs low skill labor and we have a new workflow every week. If I needed to negotiate with a union rep every time I do that, we would shut down.

Why do people imagine that organized labor (in some cases monopoly labor) is any different than big business? When big business has an unequalled advantage it abuses it, trying to milk money out of customers without returning any value. Big labor does the same. Creating bureaucratic organizations that maintain job security and job pay merely for showing up and belonging to the union, rather than actually doing the work better or more efficiently.