What if you're better than the majority of "us". I can negotiate a better deal for myself than they can get or justify; now I subsidize the group for "the greater good".
This is not why unions where created. They were to address the monopoly of power when all employees could offer was their labour. This is definitely not the case in the western white-collar labour market.
Programmer unions could copy the Hollywood model--salary floors, with no caps on salary negotiated by so-called "superstar" programmers.
Yes. This is also how insurance works. Also, statistically speaking, most people aren't better than the majority. The union then yolks the top half to make things better for the majority. People see this as unfair because they think they somehow got to be better than the majority solely by themselves and with no gains provided by others in their field. This is a way to help your sector directly. Also, a rising tide lifts all ships, so it's also possible that you earn more in the union model than when employees were pitted against each other. Less money goes to share prices, sucks for them.
There is absolutely an imbalance between the rates being paid to western white-collar workers and the value they create for their companies. If there wasn't, we wouldn't continue to see stockholder shares increase and growth in income inequity. I would argue that unions aren't as common in the white collar sector because most office workers don't fully understand the unions because they're 2+ generations removed from someone who may have been involved in one.
What do you mean by "stockholders shares increase"? You're saying shares increasing in value is a sign that there's an imbalance between wages paid to workers and value created by them?
As for the growth in income inequality, there are many other possible explanations besides a free market in labor being inherently unfair to workers.
Even if capital's share of income is increasing (I believe it has increased slightly), it doesn't follow that a cookie cutter intervention that treats labor as one homogenous mass, and gives it a greater share of income, will do anything but increase distortions being imposed on the economy.
Interventions need to be more intelligently formulated and targeted than what the simplistic ideological narratives promoted by rent-seeking labor unions advocate.
Such as?
>>What do you mean by "stockholders shares increase"? You're saying shares increasing in value is a sign that there's an imbalance between wages paid to workers and value created by them?
Quick answer: Yes. If I create $200 worth of value for my company, and I'm paid $100 dollars and the other $100 is given to the company coffers, I'm underpaid relative to the value I create. Capitalism is based on the idea that this has to happen in order for a business to function. I don't believe this to be the only way.
>>it doesn't follow that a cookie cutter intervention that treats labor as one homogeneous mass
That does't tend to be how unions work. Some go with specific rates based on seniority, some simply require wage floors or ranges based on title. Some simply bargain for benefits that help the masses (grievance resolution, healthcare options, etc). Unions are only a blunt tool if you let them be. Collective bargaining is only bad if you feel you're the specialist exceptional boy, which Western culture encourages but statistics point out are rare.
