Kyle Harrison
concept

Unions

Unions

One-line definition: Organizations through which workers bargain collectively over pay and conditions — the subject of Kyle’s “Unions, Unions Everywhere” essay, which treats them as a genuinely nuanced good rather than a simple yes/no.

How sources describe it

  • The decline: US union membership rose from <10% to a ~35% peak after the Wagner Act of 1935, then eroded to ~10% today — driven by offshoring, globalization, automation, and corruption scandals (e.g. Jimmy Hoffa). (source: Unions, Unions Everywhere - Research)
  • The case for: The New Urban Crisis — “income inequality is lower where the unionized share of the workforce is higher.” Weapons of Math Destruction — “unions have lost their punch” as the bottom 40% fell into negative net worth.
  • The case against: What You Should Know About Politics… But Don’t — UAW concessions seen as a reason US autos lost ground to Asian makers; teacher’s unions criticized for protecting underperformers over seniority.
  • When they work: The Smartest Kids in the World — Finland shows strong union contracts work “if employees arrived at work well-educated, rigorously trained, and decently paid from day one.” Kyle’s synthesis: “unions work well when the employees are well trained. When they become shackles that tie employers to bad employees they will never be super popular.”
  • The employer playbook: Amazon Unbound — Amazon’s arm’s-length DSP model and its pattern of shutting down or walking away when unionization came up; Nickel & Dimed — Walmart’s anti-union orientation video.
  • The counter-model: George F. Johnson’s Square Deal — 80% of Endicott-Johnson workers voted against a union because the employer already provided.

Where this appears

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