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Milton Friedman - The Real World Effects Of Unions

LibertyPen4 HN recommenders · 2017–2023
432K views · lecture · evergreen · Uploaded 2014-03-14

An 11-minute clip of Milton Friedman explaining the incentives of unions and how they affect employment. He argues unions restrict labor supply, raising pay for some workers while hurting low-skill workers.

HN commenters share it in union threads as a concise statement of the free-market economist's case against unions.

Labor, work & inequalityMicroeconomics & behavioral economics

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6 comments from Hacker News

@conanbatt2017 · in “American Airlines Accidentally Let Too Many Pilots Take the Holidays Off”

Because its true. Unions can only increase wages by reducing the amount of workers. Unions dont get wage increases by reducing the profits of capital in the long term. If uber drivers unionized and made uber pay them more, then less capital would go to uber and eventually have less workers. Ultimately the return on capital will end up being the same, because capital looks for returns and will move. So in effect, it would only increase wages of drivers as long as it can prevent other drivers from showing up. For anyone at home that wants to listen to someone that knows more about economy than any of us: [VIDEO]

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@Consultant324522019 · in “The Myth of the Wealthy Welder”

Nobel Economist Milton Friedman, for one. [VIDEO] If you watch to the end he fully explains how the net effect of unions is to raise the pay of high paid workers and lower the pay of low paid workers. You might also like "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell which talks about this phenomenon also.

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@Consultant324522019 · in “Anti-union activity is heating up ahead of Google contractor's vote to unionize”

The primary mechanism of power used by unions to keep wages high is by reducing the available work force. This is done by lobbying for things like requiring certifications to be legally allowed to perform work and lobbying/negotiating for disallowing non-union members from accepting work. This has the net effect of increasing the wages of the high paid workers while reducing the wages of the low paid workers who could do the higher paid work but aren't allowed to. Here's Nobel economist Milton Friedman discussing it in more detail. [VIDEO]

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@blueterminal2020 · in “Mark in the Middle”

Unions are absolutely detrimental to the society. Thank god we'll never have one for Software Engineers. Great short explanation from Milton Friedman: [VIDEO]

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@whitepaint2021 · in “Uber recognises a union for the first time”

Listen to Milton Friedman. He explains this (and many more questions regarding the economy) extremely well. Begin with this video: [VIDEO] (The Real World Effects Of Unions)

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@PathOfEclipse2023 · in “Microsoft Workers to Form Company’s First Union in the U.S.”

It really is, though, about correcting cosmic wrongs, because it is the world view you must first hold to believe something "unjust" is occurring when someone voluntarily bargains to work long hours for lower pay to be able to work their dream job. The next step is to pass legislation or push for judicial or executive action to try to "correct" for the injustice. The U.S. already has several very counter-productive pro-union labor laws it has accumulated over the years, and, under democrat presidents like Obama and Biden, the NLRB rules heavily in favor of unions: [LINK] [LINK] These laws and actions don't make the world more just. On the contrary, they just add new injustices on top of the old ones: [VIDEO]

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