Week 1 Lesson 2

Lecture Notes

Unions and collective bargaining have been the source of ongoing debate about their costs and benefits. As we'll talk about throughout this lesson, there are proponents who argue for the benefits, both the societal and organizational and individual benefits associated with unions, and opponents who argue about the devastating or the negative effects that unions have for the stakeholder outcomes. So, we'll talk about different perspectives to unions.

And, then what I'd like to do is talk about some of the actual empirical evidence about the costs and benefits associated with unions. And, I'll argue that alongside the ideological debate about the costs and benefits associated with unions, there's also some empirical evidence that tells us a nuance, a complex story about the ways in which unions are beneficial, and the ways in which unions have associated costs. And, we'll talk about the different assumptions that stand at the heart of different perspectives about unions and collective bargaining and their associated costs and benefits.