A Herald article about Pembroke contractors a few weeks ago ("Workers protest Pembroke contractor," Oct. 14) gave me pause. Members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Sheet Metal Workers International Association lambasted contractor E.W. Burman for regularly using open-shop (nonunionized) subcontractors. To make their point, the protestors handed out flyers and carried posters of a pig with the slogan "notice of E.W. Burman Construction and their piggish practice in Rhode Island."
What makes nonunionized workers so terrifying? According to the protestors, their lower wages, health benefits and licensing standards.
It is easy to get carried away and accept these reasons prima facie. That apparently was the path taken by the Vice President for Facilities Management Stephen Maiorisi, who was quick to underscore how Brown only hired good, unionized subcontractors for its projects.
What Maiorisi said may be accurate, but why make this particular statement? What crime or ethical lapse would Brown commit by hiring nonunionized workers?
I suggest the University prepare an alternate statement for the next time something like this comes up: "As long as no statutes or business regulations are violated, we will use the most efficient and least expensive labor available in a competitive market to handle our construction needs. If the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has a problem with this, they are free to take their business elsewhere."
It is high time the powers that be stopped caving in to the tired litany of union complaints and stand up for economic freedom.
Unions exist to protect workers who cannot effectively compete on a level playing field in the open market. Their wages and benefits are artificial. Their leadership seeks dues and political influence, as any rational, self-interested entity would. These dues are to unions what profits are to firms, which makes the protestors' pig analogy laughable.
We as consumers want the most output at the lowest cost. The union wants the highest return and the largest market for its members. A threat to either of these, coming from the aforementioned nonunionized subcontractors, is a serious problem.
Yet phrasing their aims in terms of power and extracted dues turns people off. Lines like "workers find it harder to support their families" are more effective. This begs the question: what about the families of the nonunionized workers? Are they not also worthy of support? I guess all families are equal, but some are more equal than others.
The issue is not families or benefits, but the attempt by the union to shelter its market from competition through the use of pressure tactics. What would happen if the University let the IBEW have its way and made a point never to use any contractor with nonunionized subcontractors? The Brown community would lose because of higher production costs, the nonunionized labor would lose because of diminished employment options and the concept of free enterprise would take a hit. Is any of this fair?
There is something to be said about the licensing disparities mentioned by the IBEW protestors. The union claims its highly skilled workforce, through participation in a four-year apprenticeship program, ought to be trusted above the dubiously qualified nonunionized workers. Why not let the market sort this out? Price signals can tell us just how qualified and reliable they really are. Their low wages seem to indicate lower productivity, but as long as a demand for them exists, they must be doing something right.
If the risks of failure and the costs associated with a given project are sufficiently high, there would be an impact on demand at the margin for a given labor force. These are relatively moot points because I doubt the IBEW cares much about worker qualifications anyway. They are just employing another scare tactic, but one with a precedent all the way back to medieval guilds and their attempts to keep markets closed. Indeed, licensing became entrenched as a tool of protection during that era.
The IBEW provides an excellent illustration of why trade unions have outlived their usefulness and ought to be phased out. Whether the industry is education, infrastructure or automobiles, union activity has undermined efforts at policy reform and competitiveness in a volatile global market. Only a small minority of American labor is unionized, and many emerging industries provide acceptable enough job packages to make unions unnecessary. In the event of another protest, we would do well to think before we sympathize.
Boris Ryvkin '09 has never thrown a brick.
