Unions and Energy

Many people really dislike unions for one reason or another. I, on the other had, think they play an integral part in maintaining a strong middle class and fair working conditions. Here is an excerpt from a blog post over at Mother Jones that accurately explains some of the benefits of unionization:

Look: unions aren't perfect. Nothing is perfect. The financial industry, just to pick an example out of my hat, is obviously wildly imperfect, but that doesn't mean we should get rid of the private financial industry. It just means we should regulate it to avoid some of its worst pathologies.

Ditto for unions. If anyone has a better mechanism for giving workers more bargaining clout and therefore higher wages, I'm all ears. Anyone who thinks collective bargaining is a good idea but believes we ought to reform the Wagner Act, I'll listen to them too. But the evidence of the past 30 years makes it pretty clear that productivity growth and improved education aren't nearly enough on their own to keep median wages growing. Neither is unionization, for that matter. But at least it pushes in the right direction.

This reminds me of the argument over the different methods of producing electricity. All production methods are imperfect--coal releases massive pollution and mining coal is destructive, nuclear creates toxic waste and uses gobs of water, wind farms produce intermittent power, dams destroy rivers, solar uses rare materials--but we should build the one with the least imperfections. Duh, right? As countries around the world continue to build coal plants, apparently it's not that obvious.