The usual argument in favour of union power and the right to strike and so on is that the workers have to be able to band together to beat back the concentrated power of the capitalists. I’m all in favour of the freedom of association, considering it just as important as the freedom of speech so unions themselves hold no terrors for me. But that standard case that labour must be protected, protect itself perhaps, from the profit gouging activities of the owners rather fails when there are no profits, are no owners trying to maximise them as they grind the workers into the dust. Which is what we see here at National Public Radio. There’s the threat of a strike in the air and yes, it’s about pay scales. But there just aren’t any greedy plutocrats to take the cash from, nor are there any taking anything at present. Thus we see the finances of an organisation in a rather more stark manner.
[…]
Which is where we get to see the pay deal matter in the raw. At the auto companies (well, absent those in and near bankruptcy problems) it was indeed possible to start shouting “But what about the workers?” Why should they get less generous pay or terms just so that the capitalists can make out like bandits? But here we’ve got exactly the same problem. And there are no capitalists, there are no profits. The income into NPR is pretty much exclusively used to pay the employees of NPR. There are no leakages to the capitalists so, in the absence of more money, what can be done?
[…]
You can see NPR’s finances here and it becomes obvious that they have available only two of the traditional three ways of dealing with a higher wage bill. In for profit companies there is that possibility of reducing the profit to pay the workers more. In the absence of profiteering this cannot of course happen. Thus, in order to accommodate higher wages they can either raise prices to stations which carry the programs or NPR can employ fewer people at those higher wages. They’re restricted to only two of those ways normally put forward. Something which does rather aid in highlighting why and how companies, for profit ones, react the way they do to forced pay rises.
That NPR is a non-profit aids in highlighting exactly the problems that all organisations have with demands for higher wages. With no profits to cut they can either charge more or employ fewer people, nothing else.
Tim Worstall, “NPR’s Problems – Isn’t It Fun When Workers At A Non-Profit Seek To Strike?”, Forbes, 2017-07-15.
August 24, 2019
QotD: Strikes at non-profit organizations
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