[EDIT] more to the point, if your company doesn't say things like "you know, this contract pays really well, no need to negotiate for more even if we think we could get it" there's no reason employees should have that kind of attitude about their pay & work conditions.
It can absolutely be the case the workers are well treated and still be losing their surplus value.
> prevent mistreatment of workers, not to transfer as much of the wealth created by a company to its employees as possible.
The wealth is created by the workers, not the company. And some would argue that keeping too large of a share of that wealth is, in fact, a mistreatment of workers.
[EDIT] that is, I don't follow why it's fine (presumably) for companies to seek to maximize returns, negotiating as a large block of people pooling their labor and capital, but not for workers to do that.
Similarly, just because some jobs produce more value doesn't mean the companies arent otherwise misbehaving.
[EDIT] I mean... wow, is it immoral if an individual negotiates with the aim to gain as much pay as possible, or only if workers band together to do so more effectively?
Individual workers are in a weaker negotiating position than employers, so without a union it's highly likely that, on average, they are receiving lower compensation than they might absent that weaker bargaining position (the short-version explanation being that, in the typical case, it harms an employee more to miss an opportunity than for a company to pass on an employee, simply due to the nature of the two entities). I don't see why employees being in a weak bargaining position does not cause "harm" but their banding together to be in a stronger position does, nor why, given that position, they should be expected to voluntarily make worse deals than they could. Further, we collectively choose, via government, to permit such a thing as a corporation to exist in the first place, so in my view there's no natural or moral argument for the state of their being in a better negotiating position than labor, and even if we go on to arrange things such that they are made weaker than labor, somehow—not just equal or less-dominant—it's gonna take more than the simple fact of things being that way to convince me they're being harmed in some sense that should make me feel bad for them or that some moral wrong is being committed.
I don't think corporations, provided their privileges and their very existence by force of law, are being particularly harmed in some sense worthy of moral assignment by having to deal with strong collective bargaining entities for labor, nor that we can call gains in negotiations made by those labor entities unfair or immoral if they aim to gain the best deals they can without also having to label much of Capitalism as such (I might follow you down that road, actually, as I'm not sure it's wrong and it seems, at first glance, consistent, at least).
Are they? In normal conditions (which seem to largely prevail in most parts of the U.S. labor market), the negotiating positions of both parties are fundamentally determined, not by either party, but by unrelated 3rd parties who are participating in the same labor market. Employers would like to pay as little as possible and employees would like to earn as much as possible. But the ability of both parties to achieve their desired outcome is dependent on their ability to walk away and obtain a better price (whether they're buying or selling labor).
[edit] how about this: you find a case where a normal employee tells a company they need to spend a half hour typing their job ad details and past pay for the same position into a web form especially for that applicant before they’ll even be considered, then also reformat their ad to match new specs the applicant gives them, and submit that to the applicant as a word document, and the company actually does it, and I’ll eat my hat. Employees are plainly the weaker supplicant in those interactions. Yes they’re “free” to do otherwise, but their job search will... go poorly.
How so? An employer has a monopoly of jobs at a particular workplace, so why not let a union have a monopoly of workers to fill the jobs at that workplace. IIRC, union representation is at the workplace level, and different unions can compete to represent the workers at that workplace.
In your opinion. In my view, one of the many moral justifications of unions is that they create a more even playing field between workers and already organized management/capital, and that includes the workers receiving a greater share of the profits the they had an essential role in creating.
A worker without a union is like a defendant without a lawyer.
That's a bad analogy. Defendants cannot avoid a hearing. Employees can just get another job. Starting businesses is hard. It entails a lot of risk. Risk that was never taken by employees. And employees are not bound to the fortunes of the company the way owners are. If the company loses money or goes belly-up, the employees get new jobs. But the owners must simply bear the loss.
Editing to expand: Being able to depend on a regular paycheck is a helluva thing. Sure, you don't participate in the upside of a company. But you don't participate in the downside, either. That's the bargain that labor makes. If you don't like the bargain, then take some risk and start a company. Most people prefer a steady paycheck, though.
I don't share your quibbles, but all right. How about this:
A worker without a union is like going to court without a lawyer.
A lot of court cases are optional. You can always just not demand what you're owed or pay whatever your asked. If you lose, just hope the next person you do business with will be more trustworthy.
> Starting businesses is hard. It entails a lot of risk. Risk that was never taken by employees. And employees are not bound to the fortunes of the company the way owners are. If the company loses money or goes belly-up, the employees get new jobs. But the owners must simply bear the loss.
So what? None of that is a convincing argument that non-business-owners should not benefit form organization. It's not like owners are the only ones taking a risk [1], workers do too. Do you think they somehow fantastically shift into equivalent new jobs whenever their laid off? Workers invest in company-specific knowledge and put down roots near their employer that are harder relocate than capital, for instance.
You also oddly fail to differentiate between groups like the struggling small business owner and the private equity firm billionaire who lays off 10,000 workers just because he'd prefer that he and his shareholders be richer. Whatever sympathy the former deserve is not due to the latter.
[1] they're the only ones risking capital, not the only ones taking a risk.
Here's another way to put it: do you think employee pay should be reduced if a company in unprofitable?
That's a bad analogy, but good unions are about self-organization of workers, not being assisted by _external_ factors.
It's also a bad analogy because unionization is, as its name suggests, forming a collective from individuals. The represented defendant is still just one person facing the justice system - and can thus hardly ever challenge its bounds.
So - unions are important, but think bigger! Take over the playing field, don't let it continue being controlled by management/capital.