Union groups must evolve to truly benefit all workers

Unions are grabbing headlines.

Workers at Amazon's Staten Island facility recently voted to form a union. A controversial unionization vote at an Amazon facility in Alabama, while failing initially, will be replayed. Starbucks baristas voted to organize in Buffalo, Rochester, Seattle and other locales. Last week, workers at Marin's Strawberry Village Starbucks petitioned to hold a unionization vote.

Some wonder whether this is the start of a unionization trend. A more important question is, do unions work?

Nationally, union membership is less than 11% of the workforce. Unionization of public employees is a whopping 35%, compared to about 7% in the private sector. In California, the blended rate is about 18% — fifth highest in the country. The level of unionization, though, has been eroding across the board for decades.

When asking if unions work, we need to clarify “for whom?” Unions have many stakeholders in addition to workers. Private sector stakeholders include management, shareholders, customers and union bosses.

Unions work well for some employees but not all. An effective union will advance the interests of average workers through better pay, improved working conditions and more consistent treatment by management. Unfortunately, unions rarely do justice to workers with stronger skills and work ethics. Indeed, strong performers pose a problem for unions as management can point to their contributions as the standard the entire workforce should achieve.

Conversely, weak performers, even derelict ones, are protected by unions. In the simplest terms, tenure-based compensation schemes reward the lazy and industrious alike.

Another group of workers hurt by organized labor are those forced to join a union that spends members' dues to promote political agendas — disconnected from workers' employment concerns — that the worker does not support.

Which brings us to labor leaders, for which unions are an existential necessity. Some union bosses are passionate about the well-being of their members. Unions, however, concentrate power and money which has the potential to corrupt, as in any human institution. Union leaders' distraction from their original mission often takes the form of conceit that their role is to address societies' broadest problems, not just workplace issues. Worse, union chiefs regularly fall under indictment for misuse of funds and other crimes (typically at the expense of the members they presumably serve).

For management and shareholders, unions are rarely a positive. Where management and labor interests align — say around safety — the two camps can productively reinforce each other. Generally, though, unions do not seek to optimize the enterprise. That means management spends a lot of time and money negotiating, mollifying and compensating for union demands. Even if everyone acts in good faith, management is not likely to view unions as “working.”

Unions' impact on businesses' customers is typically indirect and hard to assess. A reasonable conclusion is that, while recent polls show many Americans “favor” unions, most people are unwilling to pay more or receive lower quality just for a union label.

Low unionization in the private sector reflects that it is not enough for unions to “work” for only labor bosses and many, but not all, employees. Too many constituencies are disregarded.

Dramatically higher unionization in the public sector may reflect different engagement among stakeholders. Unfortunately, the venal relationship between political and labor leaders explains the prevalence of public unions while also generating manifold absurdities. I argue that this alliance is creating unsustainable pension obligations in Marin and elsewhere.

During the pandemic, teachers' unions obstructed the return to in-person learning to the lifetime detriment of countless children. Historical inanities related to union rules include New York City's warehousing (in spaces dubbed “rubber rooms”) hundreds of teachers accused of incompetence or being abusive to students, with full pay and benefits. Police unions reflexively protect overzealous officers, contributing to ills that roil our entire society.

The people dependent on public services and taxpayers are being abused by this system.

Private sector unions have an honorable legacy of contributing to worker safety, elimination of child labor and normalization of the five-day work week. Still, they need to reinvent themselves to be relevant today.

Public unions continue to be a drag on our economy and society. Only wholesale reform will remedy that.