Do Unions Really Raise Wages
第20章 工会真正提高了工资吗？
The belief that labor unions can substantially raise real wages over the long run and for the whole working population is one of the great delusions of the present age. This delusion is mainly the result of failure to recognize that wages are basically determined by labor productivity. It is for this reason, for example, that wages in the United States were incomparably higher than wages in England and Germany all during the decades when the “labor movement” in the latter two countries was far more advanced.
相信工会可以在长期内从根本上提高整个工业人口的实际工资，这种想法是当今时代重大的妄想之一。如此妄想的主要原因是在于没有认清工资根本上说是由劳动生产力决定的。举例来说，正是由于这个原因，在英国和德国的“劳工运动”发展远胜于美国的数十年间，这两个国家的工资依旧远远跟不上美国。
In spite of the overwhelming evidence that labor productivity is the fundamental determinant of wages, the conclusion is usually forgotten or derided by labor union leaders and by that large group of economic writers who seek a reputation as “liberals” by parroting them. But this conclusion does not rest on the assumption, as they suppose, that employers are uniformly kind and generous men eager to do what is right. It rests on the very different assumption that the individual employer is eager to increase his own profits to the maximum. If people are willing to work for less than they are really worth to him, why should he not take the fullest advantage of this? Why should he not prefer, for example, to make $1 a week out of a workman rather than see some other employer make $2 a week out of him? And as long as this situation exists, there will be a tendency for employers to bid workers up to their full economic worth.
尽管有压倒性的证据表明，劳动生产力是工资的根本决定因素，但这个结论常被工会领袖所忘记或者嘲笑、一大批跟在工会领袖屁股后面鹦鹉学舌的经济学家也以此求得“自由主义经济学者”的名声。这个结论并不是建立在如那些人所嘲弄的雇主们全都很和善慷慨与仗义疏财的假设上。它是以一个全然不同的假设为前提的，即：雇主个人所渴望的是增加自己的利润收入，并使之最大化。假如有员工愿意只拿少于其实际应得收入的工资的话，雇主怎么可能不充分利用这种好事呢？雇主怎可能坐视别的雇主从一个员工身上每周赚取两美元（自己两手空空），而不自己（少赚一美元却）从他身上每周赚得一美元呢？只要这种状况存在，雇主们竞相出价招揽物超其价的劳工，将使劳工工资趋于他们的最大经济价值。
All this does not mean that unions can serve no useful or legitimate function. The central function they can serve is to improve local working conditions and to assure that all of their members get the true market value of their services.
以上所说并不表示工会起不到任何有益的、合理的作用。工会能起到的核心作用，是改善局部的工作条件，并且确保工会成员所提供的劳务能够得到实际市场价值。
For the competition of workers for jobs, and of employers for workers, does not work perfectly. Neither individual workers nor individual employers are likely to be fully informed concerning the conditions of the labor market. An individual worker may not know the true market value of his services to an employer. And he may be in a weak bargaining position. Mistakes of judgment are far more costly to him than to an employer. If an employer mistakenly refuses to hire a man from whose services he might have profited, he merely loses the net profit he might have made from employing that one man; and he may employ a hundred or a thousand men. But if a worker mistakenly refuses a job in the belief that he can easily get another that will pay him more, the error may cost him dear. His whole means of livelihood is involved. Not only may he fail to find promptly another job offering more; he may fail for a time to find another job offering remotely as much. And time may be the essence of his problem, because he and his family must eat. So he may be tempted to take a wage that he believes to be below his “real worth” rather than face these risks. When an employer’s workers deal with him as a body, however, and set a known “standard wage” for a given class of work, they may help to equalize bargaining power and the risks involved in mistakes.
由于劳动力市场的工人求职与雇主择才的竞争并不完美，无论劳工方面，还是雇主方面，都无法掌握充分的劳动力市场信息。单个劳工也许不知道他对雇主提供的劳务的实际市场价值。同时，劳工的谈判能力往往相对较弱。一旦判断错误，劳工方面付出代价要远高于雇主方面。如果雇主不慎拒用一个能干人，雇主的损失只不过是那个人过人之处所能创造的那部分利润；但是，他雇用了成百上千的求职者。相反，劳工如果自信找份更好的工作并不难，而错误地拒绝了一份工作，那么，对他来讲，这可能意味着巨大的代价。他的谋生全赖一份工作。他不仅会发现自己无法很快找到待遇更好的工作，还有可能一时间连待遇低很多的工作也找不到。他最大的问题是时间上拖不起，他要吃饭，他的家人也要靠他吃饭。为避免这些风险，即便雇主开出的工资低于他心目中“实际市场价值”，他也可能接受。然而，当雇主的工人们形成一个整体与他打交道，并且为其中某一工种确定了一个大家都知道的“标准工资”时，他们会有助于均衡双方在讨价还价中的力量以及判断失误的风险。
But it is easy, as experience has proved, for unions, particularly with the help of one-sided labor legislation which puts compulsions solely on employers, to go beyond their legitimate functions, to act irresponsibly, and to embrace short-sighted and antisocial policies. TI do this, for example, whenever they seek to fix the wages of their members above their real market worth. Such an attempt always brings about unemployment. The arrangement can be made to stick, in fact, only by some form of intimidation or coercion.
历史经验却证明，工会很容易就做过了头，特别是当劳动法规偏向劳动者，单方面强制约束雇主时，工会会做出一些不负责任的行为，实行短视的、反社会的政策。例如，只要他们想把工会成员的工资固定于高出他们实际市场价值的水平，他们就在这么干。这样做一定会造成失业。事实上，要达到这个目的，工会还必定会采取某种胁迫和强制手段。
One device consists in restricting the membership of the union on some other basis than that of proved competence or skill. restriction may take many forms: it may consist in charging new workers excessive initiation fees; in arbitrary membership qualifications; in discrimination, open or concealed, on grounds of religion, race or sex; in some absolute limitation on the number of members, or in exclusion, by force if necessary, not only of the products of nonunion labor, but of the products even of affiliated unions in other states or cities.
手段之一是订立歧视性的工会会员资格，在专长或技能因素之外，设立各种限制条件。可以是对新工人收取过高的入会费、主观裁决会员资格、以公开或隐秘的方式进行宗教、种族或性别歧视、采取某种绝对的会员人数限制，或是在需要的情况下，通过强制手段推行排他性政策：不仅排斥非工会劳工生产的产品，甚至排斥外地的工会生产的产品。
The most obvious case in which intimidation and force are used to put or keep the wages of a particular union above the real market worth of its members’ services is that of a strike. A peaceful strike is possible. To the extent that it remains peaceful, it is a legitimate labor weapon, even though it is one that should be used rarely and as a last resort. If his workers as a body withhold their labor, they may bring a stubborn employer, who has been underpaying them, to his senses. He may find that he is unable to replace these workers with workers equally good who are willing to accept the wage that the former have now rejected. But the moment workers have to use intimidation or violence to enforce their demands—the moment they use mass picketing to prevent any of the old workers from continuing at their jobs, or to prevent the employer from hiring new permanent workers to take their places—their case becomes suspect. For the pickets are really being used, not primarily against the employer, but against other workers. These other workers are willing to take the jobs that the old employees have vacated, and at the wages that the old employees now reject. The fact proves that the other alternatives open to the new workers are not as good as those that the old employees have refused. If, therefore, the old employees succeed by force in preventing new workers from taking the place, they prevent these new workers from choosing the best alternative open to them, and force them to take something worse. The strikers are therefore insisting on a position of privilege, and are using force to maintain this privileged position against other workers.
借助于威胁和强制手段将某些工会会员的工资提高或者保持在实际市场价值之上的最典型的例子就是罢工。和平的罢工是可能的。只要罢工行动是和平的，便是劳工的合法武器。即便如此，罢工也应该是不得已才作为最后的手段。齐心协力的罢工，可以使一贯克扣员工的偏执老板得到教训清醒。他可能会发现，他无法以罢工者拒绝的工资标准去雇到同样优秀的劳工。但是，一当罢工行动掺杂胁迫或暴力的手段——组织大批纠察队员阻止在职员工继续上班工作，或者阻止雇主招募新员工取代他们，罢工者的主张就难免令人质疑。我们看到，纠察队员的目标并非针对雇主，而是针对其他的劳工。这些其他劳工恰恰希望得到老员工空缺出来的岗位，并且愿意接受老员工如今拒绝的工资。这个事实证明，可供新员工选择的其他工作机会，都不如老员工拒绝的这份工作好。如果在老员工的强行阻止下，新员工根本无法上岗工作，这些人只有放弃选择对他们最好的工作，转而去选择那些比较差的工作。由此可见，罢工者们实际上是在霸占某种相对于其他劳工的特权。
If the foregoing analysis is correct, the indiscriminate hatred of the “strikebreaker” is not justified. If the strikebreakers consist merely of professional thugs who themselves threaten violence, or who cannot in fact do the work, or if they are being paid a temporarily higher rate solely for the purpose of making a pretense of carrying on until the old workers are frightened back to work at the old rates, the hatred may be warranted. But if they are in fact merely men and women who are looking for permanent jobs and willing to accept them at the old rate, then they are workers who would be shoved into worse jobs than these in order to enable the striking workers to enjoy better ones. And this superior position for the old employees could continue to be maintained, in fact, only by the ever-present threat of force.
如果上述分析是正确的，那么，不分青红皂白地仇视“罢工破坏者”就不讲道理。如果罢工破坏者只是专职流氓，他们自己就用暴力威胁，或者无能其职，或者他们得到临时的高工资，其唯一目的是制造复工假象直到原有工人被吓倒复工，领原先的微薄工资，人们仇视他们就是有道理的。但如果“罢工破坏者”只是普通的男女劳工，目的不过是为了求得一分稳定的工作，而且愿意接受原有的工资标准，那么，他们就成了为了使那些罢工工人享受更好的工作条件而不得不被推到比此更坏的工作中去的工人了。事实上，也只有通过不断进行持续的暴力威胁，原有雇员的这一优越地位才有可能维持下去。
2
Emotional economics has given birth to theories that calm examination cannot justify. One of these is the idea that labor is being “under paid”generally. This would be analogous to the notion that in a free market prices in general are chronically too low. Another curious but persistent notion is that the interests of a nation’s workers are identical with each other, and that an increase in wages for one union in some obscure way helps all other workers. Not only is there no truth in this idea; the truth is that, if a particular union by coercion is able to enforce for its own members a wage substantially above the real market worth of their services, it will hurt all other workers as it hurts other members of the community.
冷静思考一下就会发现，“情绪经济学”孕育出来的理论很难自圆其说。其中之一是说，劳工普遍“工资待遇偏低”。这就好比是说，在自由市场中，价格普遍长期偏低。另一个离奇并且顽固的观点是说，一个国家工人的利益是彼此相同的，一个工会内工人的工资以某种方式调增讲有助于所有其余的工人。这一观点不仅毫无真实可言，而且实际情况是，如果某个工会强行为会员争取到的工资高于其劳务的实际市场价格，这样做，对当地的其他人、对其他所有的劳工都造成伤害。
In order to see more clearly how this occurs, let us imagine a community in which the facts are enormously simplified arithmetically. Suppose the community consisted of just half a dozen groups of workers, and that these groups were originally equal to each other in their total wages and the market value of their product.
为了更清楚地了解这种伤害是如何发生的，让我们设计一个极为简化的假想社会。假设这个社会只由六群劳工组成，并且假设它们的起始工资相同，他们的产品的市场价值一开始也相同。
Let us say that these six groups of workers consist of (i) farm hands, (2) retail store workers, (3) workers in the clothing trades, (4) coal miners, (5) building workers, and (6) railway employees. Their wage rates, determined without any element of coercion, are not necessarily equal; but whatever they are, let us assign to each of them an original index number of 100 as a base. Now let us suppose that each group forms a national union and is able to enforce its demands in proportion not merely to its economic productivity but to its political power and strategic position. Suppose the result is that the farm hands are unable to raise their wages at all, that the retail store workers are able to get an increase of 10 percent, the clothing workers of 20 percent, the coal miners of 30 percent, the building trades of 40 percent, and the railroad employees of 50 percent.
这六群劳工分别是：（1）农场工人；（2）零售商店店员；（3）制衣工人；（4）煤矿矿工；（5）建筑工人；（6）铁路职工。他们的工资不由任何强制因素决定，不一定彼此相等，但不管工资是多少，我们直接给每一群劳工一个原始的指数，以100为基础。现在，让我们假设每一群劳工都组织了全国性的工会，六大工会能够仰仗自身行业的经济生产力、政治权力和战略地位，提出各自的调资要求。假设你争我夺后的调资结果是，农场工人根本得不到工资的提高，零售商店店员涨10%，制衣工人涨20%，煤矿矿工涨30%，建筑工人涨40%，铁路职工涨50%。
On the assumptions we have made, this will mean that there has been an average increase in wages of 25 percent. Now suppose, again for the sake of arithmetical simplicity, that the price of the product that each group of workers makes rises by the same percentage as the increase in that group’s wages. (For several reasons, including the fact that labor costs do not represent all costs, the price will not quite do that—certainly not in any short period. But the figures will nonetheless serve to illustrate the basic principle involved.)
根据上面所出的假设，我们可以计算出工资平均上涨了25%。现在，为方便计算，我们再假设各行业的产品价格涨幅与该行业工资增幅相同。（由于好几个原因，包括了劳动力成本并不能代表所有生产成本这一事实，价格不会那么变动——短期内是肯定不会的。尽管如此，那样的数字仍然可以用来说明其中的基本原理。）
We shall then have a situation in which the cost of living has risen by an average of 25 percent. The farm hands, though they have had no reduction in their money wages, will be considerably worse off in terms of what they can buy. The retail store workers, even though they have got an increase in money wages of 10 percent, will be worse off than before the race began. Even the workers in the clothing trades, with a money-wage increase of 20 percent, will be at a disadvantage compared with their previous position. The coal miners, with a money-wage increase of 30 percent, will have made in purchasing power only a slight gain. The building and railroad workers will of course have made a gain, but one much smaller in actuality than in appearance.
现在的情况是，生活费用平均上涨25%。农场工人的货币工资看似没有下降，从能够买到的东西看，他们的处境变得相当糟糕。零售商店店员的货币工资虽然涨了10%，处境也比调资竞赛之前时更糟。制衣工人的货币工资即使涨了20%，生活也无法和以前相比。煤矿矿工的货币工资纵然涨了30%，购买力只是增加了一点点。建筑工人和铁路职工当然有所改善，但其实际获益比表面看上去小得多。
But even such calculations rest on the assumption that the forced increase in wages has brought about no unemployment. This is likely to be true only if the increase in wages has been accompanied by an equivalent increase in money and bank credit; and even then it is improbable that such distortions in wage rates can be brought about without creating areas of unemployment, particularly in the trades in which wages have advanced the most. If this corresponding monetary inflation does not occur, the forced wage advances will bring about widespread unemployment.
即使这样的简化计算，还要假设强行涨工资不会带来失业。要这个假设成立，我们还必须假设工资调增的同时，货币供应和银行信贷也等量增加。即使如此，扭曲的工资率也不可能不造成行业性失业，特别是在那些工资调增最多的行业中。如果没有采取相应的通货膨胀，强行涨工资会造成普遍性的失业。
The unemployment need not necessarily be greatest, in percentage terms, among the unions whose wages have been advanced the most; for unemployment will be shifted and distributed in relation to the relative elasticity of the demand for different kinds of labor and in relation to the “joint” nature of the demand for many kinds of labor. Yet when all these allowances have been made, even the groups whose wages have been advanced the most will probably be found, when their unemployed are averaged with their employed members, to be worse off than before. And in terms of welfare, of course, the loss suffered will be much greater than the loss in merely arithmetical terms, because the psychological losses of those who are unemployed will greatly outweigh the psychological gains of those with a slightly higher income in terms of purchasing power.
按百分比计算，最严重的失业并不一定发生在工资涨幅最大的工会中。因为，失业出现了转移和分配，跟对不同劳动力的需求弹性以及很多种劳动力的“联合需求”特点相关。然而，当我们把所有这些因素都考虑进去，我们很可能会发现，在把失业人数与就业人数进行权衡时，即使是那些工资涨幅最大的集团，他们的处境也每况愈下。当然，从福利的角度分析，我们将会发现，真正受到的损害要远远高出用数字表示出来的损失。因为，失业劳工承受的心理损失，远高于受雇劳工购买力增加一点点而获得的心理收益。
Nor can the situation be rectified by providing unemployment relief. Such relief, in the first place, is paid for in large part, directly or indirectly, out of the wages of those who work. It therefore reduces these wages. “Adequate” relief payments, moreover, as we have already seen, create unemployment. They do so in several ways. When strong labor unions in the past made it their function to provide for their own unemployed members, they thought twice before demanding a wage that would cause heavy unemployment. But where there is a relief system under which the general taxpayer is forced to provide for the unemployment caused by excessive wage rates, this restraint on excessive union demands is removed. Moreover, as we have already noted, “adequate” relief will cause some men not to seek work at all, and will cause others to consider that they are in effect being asked to work not for the wage offered, but only for the difference between that wage and the relief payment. And heavy unemployment means that fewer goods are produced, that the nation is poorer, and that there is less for everybody.
这种局面也不能靠提供失业救济来弥补。首先，此种救济很大程度上是直接或间接地从那些就业者的工资中支付的。因此，这降低了工资水平。同时，象我们已经看到的，“充分的”的救济金支付创造了失业。出现这样的结果有多种形式。在过去，扶助失业会员是有影响的工会的一项基本功能，所以，它们在要求涨工资时，总是三思而后行，会充分衡量由此可能带来的失业。而在现代失业救济制度下，政府强迫一般纳税人负担工资过高造成的失业救济支出，工会便失去此种针对提过分调资要求的约束。此外，我们说过，“充分的”救济会使一些人根本不想工作，而工作的人又觉得努力工作挣来的实际收入仅相当于工资和救济金两者的差额。严重的失业意味着产品产量更小、国家更穷、每个人能拥有的东西都更少。
The apostles of salvation by unionism sometimes attempt another answer to the problem I have just presented. It may be true, they will admit, that the members of strong unions today exploit among others, the nonunionized workers; but the remedy is simple: unionize everybody. The remedy, however, is not quite that simple. In the first place, in spite of the enormous legal and political encouragements (one might in some cases say compulsions) to unionization under the Wagner-Taft-Hartley Act and other laws, it is not an accident that only about a fourth of this nation’s gainfully employed workers are unionized. The conditions propitious to unionization are much more special than generally recognized. But even if universal unionization could be achieved, the unions could not possibly be equally powerful, any more than they are today. Some groups of workers are in a far better strategic position than others, either because of greater numbers, of the more essential nature of the product they make, of the greater dependence on their industry of other industries, or of their greater ability to use coercive methods. But suppose this were not so? Suppose, in spite of the self-contradictoriness of the assumption, that all workers by coercive methods could raise their money wages by an equal percentage? Nobody would be any better off in the long run, than if wages had not been raised at all.
工联主义的倡导者有时会用另一个答案来回答刚才的救济问题。他们承认，如今的大工会会员的确会欺压没有参加工会的劳工，补救办法很简单：人人都参加工会。然而，这种补救方案并没有那么简单。首先，不论瓦格纳—塔夫脱—哈特利法（Wagner-Taft-Hartley Act）以及其他的法律条文怎样从法律上和政治上给予工会组织以极大的支持（人们可能会在某些情况下把这种做法称为强制），但美国仍然只有约四分之一的潜在受惠的劳工参加了工会。{书后注:现在，劳工参加工会的入会率为15.5%（《投资者财经日报》，1995年11月14日）}导致工会化的条件要比我们通常所认为的要特殊得多。即使人人参加工会，各工会的力量也不可能很均衡，一如今天的形势。某些种类的工人有远比他人更有利的策略性优势，要么是会员人多势众，要么是生产的产品不可或缺，要么其他行业对这一行业更为依赖，要么是更会使用暴力。但是，假如情况相反呢？撇开这一假设中自我矛盾之处不谈，如果所有工人的货币工资都可以通过强迫手段等比例地提高，又能如何呢？可以肯定，从长期来看，没有人会过得比工资丝毫不变要好哪怕一点点。
（未完待续）