>Why cite anything to you when you cite nothing? You are absolutely wrong in all of your assertions

Ok, I'll provide you citations and solid evidence:

> It is mystifying how one could think the legal definition of a labor union is a monopoly on labor in the United States.

The Sherman Antitrust Act was passsed in 1890 (15 USC 1-38), stating "every contract, combination of trust or otherwise, or consipracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal." [1]. It was then, for a decade, used to declare unions as illegal monopolies by the courts [2]. Here is a review paper from the era listing many, many cases [3].

For example, in United States v. Workingmen's Amalgated Council of New Orleans (1893) [4], the courts ruled that the Sherman Antitrust Act did apply to unions. Here is a good summary quote: "The act declaring illegal “every contract or combination in the form of trust, or otherwise in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states or with foreign nations,” (26 St. at Large, p. 209,) applies to combinations of laborers as well as of capitalists."

So, in order to allow unions, which are monopolies under the law, the Clayton Antitrust Law was passed in 1914, which explicitly allows unions to exist despite being monopolies [4]. Read section 6 of the Act, as 15 USC 17. Section 15 is the federal laws on antitrust and monopolies. Section 17, titled "Antitrust laws not applicable to labor organizations" was required because labor organizations are monopolies on labor.

By the way, I've looked quite a bit at these angles, and I have never found a single country with unions and with antitrust that has not needed this specific exemption - feel free to cite otherwise if you can find it.

Since then there is also a century of legal cases resolving the edges of what parts of union monopoly are allowed and which are not.

Even recently court cases refine the monopoly power of unions, such as this 2019 Supreme Court ruling [10].

Now, you might ask since the law is explicitly clear that unions are legal monopolies, with exemptions, why are they monopolies. Because, under the economic definitions, they are monopolies.

Some examples:
From The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics [5]: "Economists who study unions–including some who are avowedly prounion–analyze them as cartels that raise wages above competitive levels by restricting the supply of labor to various firms and industries."

From the textbook, Principles of Microeconomics [6]: "This labor market situation resembles what a monopoly firm does in selling a product, but in this case a union is a monopoly selling labor to firms." Many textbooks have the same explanation because it is correct - a union is a monopoly on labor.

Economists even use the term "monopoly wage" to refer to the wage premiums union workers get [7]: "Is a term used by economists to refer to the higher average wages enjoyed by unionized workers compared to their non-union equivalents. It expresses the idea that unions act as coercive monopolies within the labour market that control the supply of labour and therefore raise wages above the level that they would otherwise reach."

So far I have given clear evidence and citations that unions are legally monopolies, have specific exemptions from US antitrust law because of that, and are analyzed as monopolies by economists.

You claimed "In the United States a union’s legal definition is not a monopoly on labor. This is not the economic definition or practical definition either." These are all wrong, as I just showed.

As you wrote: "You should read up on..." Indeed.

Now as to the questions about do unions on average obtain higher wages? That is also true, and I can cite if you really need it. Then the question is where does that extra wage come from, and again you can track the evidence it comes from cost to the company and higher prices and lower employment (). Then you can think so what if the company pays, but then you learn that the majority of public company value is held by the public in pension funds, in public pensions, in large shareholder groups. Then you can learn that over half of Americans hold stock in some form, and as people near retirement, this ratio increases significantly. Then you can ask when a company loses a dollar to a union wage, how much value is lost in the stock capitalization, and you will find a one to one match. All of this can be read through appropriate academic literature.

So yes, these captured wages significantly fall onto society, whether or not you believe it, in forms of prices, in forms of excluding workers that don't get picked by the union, and in costs more subtly hidden in retirement funds and other financial places. The money is not free.

As to the () about unions lowering employment, this follows both basic economic theory (the more something costs, the less of it gets purchased) and from ample empirical academic literature. [8] : "Union strength, which reflects both union coverage and the union wage differential, is found to decrease employment and increase unemployment by a small but significant amount." [9] "More union involvement in wage setting significantly decreases the employment rate of young and older individuals relative to the prime-aged group." There's plenty more.

Feel free to cite your evidence about laws and economics.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/sherman_antitrust_act

[2] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/....

[3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1829777.pdf

[4] https://cite.case.law/f/54/994/

[4] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/clayton_antitrust_act

[5] https://www.econlib.org/library/Topics/College/laborcosts.ht...

[6] https://pressbooks.oer.hawaii.edu/principlesofmicroeconomics...

[7] https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority...

[8] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/298204?jou...

[9] https://www.nber.org/digest/dec02/whose-employment-affected-...

[10] https://unlockhighered.com/case-challenges-the-monopoly-powe...