Most “progressives” view unionization as an unalloyed good. Collective bargaining “evens things out” and allows downtrodden workers to get more of the value they produce. The costs are hardly ever considered.

Recently, grad students at Duke University voted overwhelmingly in favor of forming a union, and in today’s Martin Center article, Dan Way looks at the pros and cons.

He writes:

Supporters of the disruptive movement believe unionization is long past due; will improve teaching and research by enhancing work conditions, wages, and benefits; and strikes a blow for free-market principles of financial self-determination. Critics contend it distorts the traditional role of the academy and the teacher-student relationship, creates division through bullying and political activism, and threatens to further undermine the educational mission of schools by allowing external forces into even more campus corners.

As Way explains, the vote to unionize doesn’t guarantee any contractual improvements for the grad students. There have been cases where such unions were formed but no collective-bargaining contract was ever reached. Nevertheless, the union members had to pay dues. That’s what the unions are after, and the union in this instance — the Service Employees International Union — is going to demand dues from all those new members.

Way quotes one expert on the intense politicization of unions: “When you look at the spending of most of these big unions, SEIU included, a lot of it’s going to politics and not to the actual negotiations and representation.”

At least, the grad students who didn’t want unionization can’t be terminated if they don’t want to pay the SEIU its dues, since North Carolina is a Right to Work state.

The clear winner here is the SEIU. The grad students will probably be very disappointed to discover that they’ll pay dues and get rather little in return.