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Unions do hurt profits, but not productivity, and they remain a bulwark against a widening wealth gap

  • Written by Chris Doucouliagos, Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Deakin Business School and Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University
Unions do hurt profits, but not productivity, and they remain a bulwark against a widening wealth gap

This article is part of an election series on wages, industrial relations, Labor and the union movement ahead of the 2019 federal election. You can read other pieces in the series here.


Some advocates of laissez-faire capitalism argue that trade unions are bad for productivity. “With few exceptions,” according to one American economist,...

Read more: Unions do hurt profits, but not productivity, and they remain a bulwark against a widening wealth...

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