I know it sounds weird, but if a country has a legal minimum wage it removes tools from unions since companies can just tell the unions to pound sand.
Here in Sweden we don’t have any minimum wage mandated by the government.
It is negotiated between the sector unions and employers.
Also sympathy strikes are legal here.
Whenever there have been talks about introducing a minimum wage in Sweden, unions have allways reacted negatively, as it would effectively prevent them from negotiating for higher wages, and a minimum wage would easily get stuck in the past.
I know that the US and Sweden are very different, and that in the current labor market in the US, removing a minimum wage would be a disaster, but I felt as if your conclusion that minimum wage is allways bad needed a counterpoint.
unions have allways reacted negatively, as it would effectively prevent them from negotiating for higher wages,
Maybe take away power from the union, but the union can totally still negotiate a minimum wage if it want. The union I’m part (insurance workers of the state of São Paulo) have a minimum wage, higher that the state and national one.
Sometimes a union will promote the union interest rather than member interest. There is a current scandal about corrupt unions here in Australia. We have a national minimum wages and also award wages by sector and seniority, like hundreds of minimum wages.
Efficiency = reduce costs
Minimum wage = labor cost
Eliminate Minimum wage = lower labors costs = Efficiency
Getting rid of minimum wage can be good.
I know it sounds weird, but if a country has a legal minimum wage it removes tools from unions since companies can just tell the unions to pound sand.
Here in Sweden we don’t have any minimum wage mandated by the government.
It is negotiated between the sector unions and employers.
Also sympathy strikes are legal here.
Whenever there have been talks about introducing a minimum wage in Sweden, unions have allways reacted negatively, as it would effectively prevent them from negotiating for higher wages, and a minimum wage would easily get stuck in the past.
I know that the US and Sweden are very different, and that in the current labor market in the US, removing a minimum wage would be a disaster, but I felt as if your conclusion that minimum wage is allways bad needed a counterpoint.
Maybe take away power from the union, but the union can totally still negotiate a minimum wage if it want. The union I’m part (insurance workers of the state of São Paulo) have a minimum wage, higher that the state and national one.
That is fair, I was absolutely projecting my Swedish biases in my earlier comment, sorry about that.
Sometimes a union will promote the union interest rather than member interest. There is a current scandal about corrupt unions here in Australia. We have a national minimum wages and also award wages by sector and seniority, like hundreds of minimum wages.
Unions here also don’t like universal healthcare here for the same reason.
It’s not a good reason.