Labor Unions

Labor unions are "legal monopolies in restraint of trade." (Students of anti-trust law will recognize the allusion to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890.) The acts of Congress that enabled labor unions were intended to improve the lot of laboring people. The result -- owing to the inviolable law of unintended consequences -- has been the opposite: Laboring people who belong to unions have steadily lost employment over the decades. Their jobs have been "taken" by other laboring people who are willing to work at the prevailing wage. Only one group has benefited from the legalization of labor unions: union bosses who thrive on the mandatory dues paid by union members.