Why is this problematic? I find the idea of unions distasteful. Why should all employees be obligated to join a union? It would make more sense if it was voluntary and people collectively bargain as a subgroup whose size is smaller than all employees. But forcing a single union upon all employees is just creating a separate parallel management structure, one that often tends towards practices that ultimately deliver less for customers by legitimizing things like tenure-based rules. Having a single union also eliminates competition - I just don't see why that is a good thing. And what stops employees from just forming their own company to provide a service that is contracted out? The company can choose whether or not to use their services based on their offer.
That sounds good in theory, but essentially gives the company the ability to play groups off each other. The entire point of unionization is to be able to negotiate on level terms.
This viewpoint also seems to assume that merit is the most important thing, and that unions should optimize for it. For a union, tenure is super important to maintain its strength. Corporations are held together with contracts and money, so they optimize for things that are legally safe and make more money than they cost. Unions are held together with only social fabric, so it makes sense to optimize for things that maintain continuity and cohesion.
I think unions playing off each other is a good thing. Competition is a great mechanism for preventing counterproductive policies like favoring tenure, avoiding accountability, and so forth.
There are also other benefits (unrelated to compensation) from having competing unions. To get more concrete about this, consider that the National Education Association (largest union in the US, representing teachers) is very politically biased and recently started pushing the NYT's "1619 Project" on educators (https://neaedjustice.org/resource/the-1619-project/). I find this to be unacceptable because it is weaponizing public schooling to achieve political ends, which is indistinguishable from what we label as "propaganda" in other countries (except that it comes from a big monolithic union rather than a government). Not to mention the 1619 project is factually incorrect (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-proje...).
So if you're a student, parent, or educator who disagrees with the NEA's push with the 1619 project, what can you do? If you want to keep your job, you're obligated to pay the union dues, subsidize their institutional politics, and play along with union rules. Having several competing teacher unions, on the other hand, would allow for those who disagree with this politicization to separate themselves from the NEA while still having access to jobs and having the ability to collectively bargain as their own subset.
Put another way, unions as implemented in US law grant local labor monopolies to unions. Fundamentally, this is no different than when a big telecom player like Comcast has a local monopoly. We can see it's not healthy in that instance, so why is this any different?
It seems like you ignored my original post, which explained exactly why that idea doesn't work, and why your continued talk about "inefficiency" and ragging on tenure is ignorant.
I'll restate. Labor has to be a single unit in order to negotiate on equal terms with capital. Since unions are formed in a given workplace or industry, it's not like a union or local can negotiate with multiple employers in order to gain leverage. That concept kind of exists in the form of consulting agencies, but they fill a much different niche. Unions optimize their power structure for continuity and cohesion - the efficiency of their employer is highly, highly secondary. This is a good thing, as stable unions means a stable middle class, and low social unrest. Minimizing the labor cost of American businesses is not the end-all, be-all of social KPI.
Based on your comments, I'm guessing you have a specific political bent, but if you do the slightest bit of research, you'll find that people of all persuasions push their ideology via the School Board. Texas is a particularly famous example of right-wing ideologues re-writing history in their way. Unfortunately the humans seem to be the weak point of the system, so the only thing you can do is be involved and build a strong community.
And AFAIK in the US specifically, a union can only force an employer to accept them if it gets the majority on board to represent all employees, which means unions representing only some employees, while possible, are heavily disadvantaged, so pushing for covering all employees of a group makes even more sense.
