Thett3 Tournament: Labor Unions are a net benefit to humanity

Thanks Darkkermit. I haven't fully finished my research (and deadline is approaching) so I will be posting more sources in the next round and probably post more comments on Con's sources as well. Framework:The most appropriate way to define “humanity” would be to define it is all the people in the world. However, due to ease of data collection in the United States and the difficulty of collecting and compiling data from other countries, I will assume “humanity” to be the people in the United States; where data is provided for the US. If Labor Unions benefit the majority of people in the US, then we can say that they are beneficial overall to humanity.C1) Income inequality is an obstacle to the well-being of humanitya) Exclusive focus on overall economic growth without regard to income inequality does not accurately represent what is beneficial to humanity. Compare two hypothetical economies: People in the Economy Economy A Economy B Total GDP $ 100 Billion $ 75 Billion Top 10% of people 90% of wealth 30% of wealth Middle 45% of people 8% of wealth 40% of wealth Bottom 45% of people 2% of wealth 30% of wealth Economy B is more beneficial to the humans in that economy because despite the lower overall GDP, the vast majority of humans have greater wealth and resources. In other words the median is greater. Con bases his arguments off of the incomplete premise that increasing the overall wealth of the nation is a beneficial to humanity. However, a growth in GDP could increase the wealth of the top 1-10% of people without helping the remaining people or perhaps even by making them poorer on average. To truly benefit humanity, we must increase the wealth of all or most humans in the economy. The gross GDP of a country is not directly indicative of whether the bottom and median earners earn and is therefore an incomplete measure of overall human development. Higher GDP is good but higher median per-capita income is a better measure. b) Income inequality affects the overall GDP as well. More on this later.C2) Unions reduce Income Inequality and provide other benefitsa) I've established that income inequalities are bad and undesirable. One of the ways humanity addresses the problem of income inequalities is through the establishment of labor unions. Labor Unions are how humans will organize themselves to gain the equality in bargaining power and reduce inequality of income.b) Labor Unions provide higher pay and benefits, safe working conditions and job security. While Con might argue that the businesses cannot offer wages lower than other businesses, businesses still offer low enough wages for it to be an overall detrimental effect on humanity. Regarding the example of public vs private school teachers, the teachers in private schools have the choice to quit and join a public school instead. They also have the option to unionize in private schools.c) Union threat effect: Unions raise wages for people not in Unions as well. While it is a well-known fact that Union workers earn more, the existence of a union causes wages for non-union employees to rise [4]. This is known as the Union Threat Effect. C3) Top down economics doesn't workCon has outlined 4 institutions which he says increase the overall GDP including rewarding businesses for increasing productivity, incentivizing people to start businesses, and investment of capital. Con doesn't say exactly how the businesses will be rewarded but I am assuming that he is saying that they should receive some form of monetary gain. Con then assumes that the businesses will use this gain to create more jobs. However, this usually isn't the case.Consider the Bush Tax cuts for businesses and the TARP bailouts. Businesses haven't used money from the Bush tax cuts and the TARP bailouts to create jobs. Instead, they saved it, sent it out to stockholders as dividends, repurchased their own stocks, or invested overseas [1]. Con's premises are based on the argument that monetary incentives to businesses will be used to create jobs which isn't the case. Businesses will use incentives and rewards however they see fit. To truly help the working class, businesses must be required to provide minimum pay and benefits. Despite an economic recovery, the number of Americans in poverty increased 15% between 2000-2006. During 2000-2006, average wages remained flat despite an increase of worker productivity of 15%, while corporate profits increased 13% per year [2].Con further elaborates by saying that if a labor unions demands wages of $20 an hour instead of the $15 that the business would have otherwise have paid, businesses will employ less workers. However, this doesn't take into account the point about income inequality that I mentioned. The executives and management at large businesses are paid thousands of times what the laborers are paid. Cutting wages and bonuses will release a lot of excess cash that the businesses can then use to hire the required number of workers at the minimum wage required by the union. Con's arguments only hold valid if the businesses stubbornly insist on keeping the pay of its management constant while reducing the number of laborers. Such businesses will fail due to poor planning.Since Con and I have an equal burden of proof, consider the flip side. Businesses are paying the minimum union wage to workers and it expires or is no longer applicable. Would the businesses reduce the wage and hire more workers? Or reduce the wages and keep the difference for themselves and the top management? Empirical evidence suggests the latter. In a study in New Jersey of fast food restaurants before and after an increase in minimum wage, there was no difference in the number of workers; rather the increased costs were passed onto the consumers [3].C4) Public Labor Unions Con states that the unions prevent the government from improving economic development such as education, science funding and roads etc. These can be easily solved by increasing taxes on the wealthy. Con seems to think that it is a bad thing but it isn't because higher taxes on the wealthy combined with a higher minimum wage for union workers reduces economic ineqaulity which is ultimately good for humanity overall. Con further argues that the government has a near monopoly on coercion and force. However, this makes it even more imperative that government workers unionize in order to protect themselves from being taken advantage of by the government. The "coercion and force" is far more likely to come from top brass in the government rather than bottom level government workers who are the ones who would most benefit from unionization.Unions do not protect employees from lawful termination, only from unjust termination. The difficulty in termination is justified considering the difficulty of the employee in finding a job compared to the difficulty of a corporation in hiring a new employee. Furthermore, Con's source about teachers has several flaws: he assumes that the poor graduation rates are all because of teachers as opposed to poor facities offered by schools, gang violence, poor homes which make it imperative for students to skkip school to work and a number of other factors. Teachers alone cannot be blamed for low graduation rates. Doing so creates an unrealistically high number of teachers that Con's source says "must" be fired and compares them to the low number odf teachers that are fired. Further, if teachers really are incompetent, they can be fired before they are offered tenure. It only makes sense for it to be easier for employees to quit their job than it is for corporations to terminate their employment. Humanity organizes itself into these arrangements to benefit the majority of humans.Sources:[1] http://useconomy.about.com...[2] http://useconomy.about.com...[3] http://davidcard.berkeley.edu...[4] http://www.epi.org...