Comments on: Workplace Facade Democracy

By: Economists Against Freedom « The Vanishing Point

Economists Against Freedom « The Vanishing Point — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:08:33 +0000

[...] decades, supporting the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act”. I have written about this earlier. From the petition: The Employee Free Choice Act will better reflect worker desires than the [...]

By: Martin Rannje

Martin Rannje — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 22:07:41 +0000

Oh misread the question then

By: US

US — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:21:37 +0000

I know all that. I wasn’t talking about what the “true underlying causes” for the drop in union membership was, I was answering your question ‘why do _the unions_ think their membership is declining’.

I was just being snarky…

By: Martin Rannje

Martin Rannje — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:26:20 +0000

Not really, even though that could be a corrolary of the development. But mainly because the jobs that traditionally attracted unions in the west are gradually being eliminated (factory jobs, assembly line jobs etc.) as we are moving from industrial society to service society to information society. One thing is that these jobs imposed more austere conditions on workers, making it easier to justify unionization and attract members, but another thing is that these jobs were quite uniform, creating the traditional working class with more or less uniform wages and preferences – and more homogeneous preferences makes it easier to mobilize people behind a common cause.

By: US

US — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:21:59 +0000

“With the economic and technological development in the western world, gradually eliminating the tough jobs and austere working conditions of, say the 19th century and beginning of 20th, we should be moving towards an era of declining union influence and activity, not the opposite! Why do the think union membersip is declining in most western countries…?”

Because it’s a lot harder for the unions now to force people into the unions than it used to be?…