alt Hacker NewsUnions are about building worker rights and protections into the business expenses. When they are industry wide, it prevents any company from gaining an advantage by exploiting their workers.
A strong market economy is orthogonal to the treatment of workers. For example, the economy of the early US was both very competitive and had slavery. Same for islands like Jamaica.
The ideal is government regulation ensuring worker rights. Barring that, unions fill the role. Unions exist to fill a void created by a low regulation market. They are the libertarian solution.
> When they are industry wide, it prevents any company from gaining an advantage by exploiting their workers.
If one company is exploiting their workers in a competitive market, what prevents those workers from going to work for any of the other companies?
> For example, the economy of the early US was both very competitive and had slavery.
Slavery is a government regulation that says that if someone pays a stranger money then you have to do work you never agreed to do. Markets are the thing where you only have to do something if you agreed to do it.
> They are the libertarian solution.
They're an attempt to monopolize the labor market in an industry. When unsuccessful they're useless because they have no bargaining power, when successful they're an abusive monopolist extracting undue rents from that industry's customers.