Ideally it should be working well for society, right? (by whatever metric you choose, not simply an easily measurable one like GDP). It could go either way, in theory, even if you narrow your optimization objective to the working class. If a union benefits its members and has second-order effects that benefit other workers, then great. OTOH, if its second-order effects on the economy or industry come in some way at the expense of other workers, then it seems fair to call this out.
See an example of transport unions in the UK. Tube drivers are in the top 5%/10% of income in the UK, for a 35 hour or so week, and a lot of other benefits. The union power has done amazing things for them... but at a huge cost (albeit dispersed) cost to the rest of society.
Fully agree the ideal is where you have both. Germany seems to have good models where unions improve the efficiency of companies in giving a point of contact for negotiations, and helping the company succeed - winning together.
Yup. It's very much about putting their members first and too bad for everything else.
Railway Signalers are unionised. After a series of incidents the recommendation was that all signaller's maximum shift length be restricted to 8 hours to avoid fatigue. Same as air traffic control. Unions should be on board with that right?
Nope. Signallers liked 12 hour shifts. 3 working days is 36 hours and that's your whole week. Nobody was going to pay them the same wages for 24 hours work, so they'd be putting in an extra day and a half per week to make it up.
So the UK rail unions fought this safety change. That's what to expect from unions. Good for individual employees, bad for society as a whole.
Unions certainly should work for the benefit of employees, while employer's associations certainly should cater to the interest of the industry.
Unions are a required counter-balance to the forces of business who employ people. If either end dominates, things go sour very quickly. It's the state and government that should maintain this power balance between these out so that neither party is in the position to dictate decisions to overrule the other party.
The moral hazard is that if a union has second-order effects benefiting other workers in the industry but not in the union, workers in the industry lose their short-term incentive for membership in the union.
At which point everybody loses except the rentier class.
