Trade unions function as labor cartels. The idea is to restrict the supply of labor available to an individual firm or an entire industry in order to artificially increase wages/benefits above market rates for the members of the union. This has a multitude of bad effects for society, such as higher consumer prices and increased unemployment, both of which hurt the poor the most. Unions also tend to kill innovation and fight against any technology which reduces human labor.
There is a very good reason why labor unions are specifically excluded from antitrust laws - it's because they blatantly violate them.
Under free market capitalism, if the employees tried to form a labor cartel, the employer would simply fire them on the spot and replace them with other workers. That's really all that needs to be said about that.
On the political left, things get a bit more complicated. While a variety of labor unions were founded by socialists, many leftists today and in the past have been or are against unions for the following reasons:
1. Trade unions solidify the capitalist wage system. The fat and stupid "worker" performing his cushy union job and receiving compensation far above market rates quickly loses any interest in class struggle. As Marx put it, unions turn wage slaves into contented wage slaves.
2. To their credit, leftists usually despise union management. This is a group of rich, politically-connected, extremely corrupt pieces of shit who are in bed with the state - just what one would expect from a group running a legal cartel.
3. Independent unions have no place in a socialist economy run by central planners, because strikes interfere with production. The historical record bears this out.
Lenin didn't like trade unions. He felt their best function was to spread commie propaganda. When the workers of Kronstadt demanded the right to form labor unions, Lenin sent Trotsky to take care of the situation. There the "Butcher of Kronstadt" executed thousands and sent thousand more to concentration camps. By the time Stalin was in power, unions were under complete control of the state, and that meant no strikes.
Here's Mr. H on unions (from Mein Kampf):
Hitler knew he couldn't have independent unions, so he nationalized all of them, thus creating the DAF, in which strikes were outlawed.
In a planned, socialist economy, there can be no labor strikes, because socialism uses the stick, not the carrot, in order to get people to work. Whether it's a four year plan or a five year plan doesn't matter, the plan has quotas which must be met or else. Unions are inconsistent with socialism because the union is looking out for its own interests instead of what's good for the community as a whole. That sort of self-interested behavior is not tolerated under socialism.
There is a very good reason why labor unions are specifically excluded from antitrust laws - it's because they blatantly violate them.
Under free market capitalism, if the employees tried to form a labor cartel, the employer would simply fire them on the spot and replace them with other workers. That's really all that needs to be said about that.
On the political left, things get a bit more complicated. While a variety of labor unions were founded by socialists, many leftists today and in the past have been or are against unions for the following reasons:
1. Trade unions solidify the capitalist wage system. The fat and stupid "worker" performing his cushy union job and receiving compensation far above market rates quickly loses any interest in class struggle. As Marx put it, unions turn wage slaves into contented wage slaves.
2. To their credit, leftists usually despise union management. This is a group of rich, politically-connected, extremely corrupt pieces of shit who are in bed with the state - just what one would expect from a group running a legal cartel.
3. Independent unions have no place in a socialist economy run by central planners, because strikes interfere with production. The historical record bears this out.
Lenin didn't like trade unions. He felt their best function was to spread commie propaganda. When the workers of Kronstadt demanded the right to form labor unions, Lenin sent Trotsky to take care of the situation. There the "Butcher of Kronstadt" executed thousands and sent thousand more to concentration camps. By the time Stalin was in power, unions were under complete control of the state, and that meant no strikes.
Here's Mr. H on unions (from Mein Kampf):
In the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only are they important in the sphere of social policy but also, and even more so, in the national political sphere. For when the great masses of a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a just trade unionist movement the stamina of the whole nation in its struggle for existence will be enormously reinforced thereby.
Hitler knew he couldn't have independent unions, so he nationalized all of them, thus creating the DAF, in which strikes were outlawed.
In a planned, socialist economy, there can be no labor strikes, because socialism uses the stick, not the carrot, in order to get people to work. Whether it's a four year plan or a five year plan doesn't matter, the plan has quotas which must be met or else. Unions are inconsistent with socialism because the union is looking out for its own interests instead of what's good for the community as a whole. That sort of self-interested behavior is not tolerated under socialism.
