Unions?

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Big Labor has one besetting problem that leaves unionism as practiced in the United States suspect from a libertarian point of view -- its monopolistic features and powers, as arranged by the power of the State. Taft-Hartley (1947) and the National Labor Relations Act (1935) acted to limit some of these unions' powers and curb the resulting excesses -- but unions qua unions are not so very necessary to attaining good working conditions and recognizing and acting upon workers' rights vis-à-vis those of employers. Union true-believers won't tell you, for instance, that if the workforce is kept well enough and happy enough, they won't need a union, and I think this is a gathering trend. The other pan of the balance is that a company gets the union its management -- personnel or culture -- deserves.

The libertarian free-market paradigm would place unions in competition rather than in monopoly. You can see how that would shake out from the employer's point of view, absent backroom deals to fix the prices of labor. And you can see how that would shake out from the consumers' point of view also.