Hey, look what's happening in the auto industry:
Honda Motor is giving many U.S. factory workers an 11% pay bump and making other improvements for these employees, a move that follows major gains secured by the United Auto Workers union in Detroit last month.
The base wage increase is effective in January, according to a memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The Japanese automaker is also cutting the time it takes to reach the top wage in half to three from six years, a change that is similar to one won by the UAW in its negotiations with General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler-parent Stellantis.
Unions have long been important not just because of the gains they win for their members, but because even non-union shops are forced to keep pace. Toyota raised its payscales a week ago, and even Tesla is going to have to raise pay if they want to stay competitive for assembly line workers.
Now all we have to do is revive unions throughout the country. Sigh.
When I worked in the factories in Detroit, I avoided working in union shops because the union rules prevented me from rising as fast as I wanted, or simply from being as productive as I wanted, but I had no illusions about the fact that my wages were as high as they were because there were union shops around.
My father was upper management at a company for his entire adult life. When I was kid, the union called a strike and it got a little ugly. After our house was egged, I asked my father if we should be mad at the union. He said no because his salary would be much less if it weren't for the union.
My father was labor relations manager for a smallish branch of a large corporation. He was prematurely "retired" because if the union brought up a grievance and he thought it was justified, he would say so. His problem was that he never forgot what he'd learned when he worked in the machine shop. They replaced him with a business school graduate.
Another company hired him specifically to help them keep the shop from being unionized. He made recommendations about workplace safety and general working conditions, and they ignored him. After a year of that he told them they needed a union.
We also have to prevent companies from moving everything to low-wage countries. In fact this movement is a main reason that unions lost power.
There has been less loss of factories and union power in the auto industry because it has been protected. Automobile imports at one time were limited in number. The former Chrysler and GM were both bailed out. American light truck production is protected by the infamous "chicken tax", a 25% tariff on imported trucks. Opponents of tariffs claim they make things too expensive for Americans to buy. How did that work for trucks?
Economists like to point out that millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty by American companies' labor arbitrage. That's nice for the Chinese, but American governments are supposed to look after the interests of Americans. Arbitrage extends to workplace-safety and environmental regulation; Chinese may have higher incomes, but they pay in higher risk of workplace injuries and polluted air and water. Tariffs should scaled by the degree of adherence to OECD standards of workplace safety and health, labor rights, and environmental protection, to encourage developing-world progress in these areas. Revenues should be devoted to retraining and other measures to lessen the impact on domestic workers.