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Comment by beaeglebeached | Hacker News Reader

What if I consent to performing labor but don't consent to membership in or contract with the democratic system of the union? I don't see how the vote of third party is relevant here. I'm fine if all the other employees want to be in the union and I can undercut them to get a job.

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What if my company consents to selling widgets to a new customer, but doesnt consent to the exclusivity clause they have with the another supplier? I dont see how the vote of the third party is relevant here.

You see how ridiculous that sounds when you don't treat unions as some special form of supplier that doesn't get to negotiate in groups, right?

It sounds ridiculous because your example isn't a imposition of a third party but rather a contract the counterparty signed to and thus asking something the counterparty doesn't consent to doing.

And can a company and union not sign a contract for only exclusively using union labor, sort of like some exclusivity deal?

Sure, then it's no longer third party dissent but counterparty dissent in hiring non union. Obviously competitors will emerge to varying success to employ these excluded persons.

So then you don’t have a problem with being required to be part of a union to work at certain companies.

I’d also like to point out that you needed to have this framed in the context of a union negotiating the same way as a company before you were ok with it. Why the visceral reaction to unions but none for companies?

The initial premise was 'all' employees.

If the company and employee have choice to choose union/non union I have no problem with it. The visceral reaction was to denial of employment by mutual consent.

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