Why do unions advertise with large inflatable rodents?

November 24, 2009 | (One Comment)

Construction is a largely unionized activity in New York City, and the union guys would like to keep it that way. If you think about it, it’s a marketing problem — they want to maintain or increase market share in the market in which they compete.

Anybody who has lived in New York for some amount of time becomes familiar with the unions’ tried-and-true marketing approach:

The Rat.

A union picketing a site where the workers are non-union bring along this large inflatable rat, presumably to shame the site’s owners into hiring union workers. I spotted this fella on my walk into work this morning.

Union marketing methods seem very, very Neanderthal. “Negative consequences” marketing — if you don’t use or product or service (or union), you’ll be bad or unpopular or picketed by unflattering hot air balloons — can’t be that effective in the 21st century. Can it?

I wonder what it would be like to start a union that demanded higher pay, benefits, perks, etc., for sure, but offered, instead of intimidation, threats, and giant inflatable rats, a better-trained, better-behaved, more-productive workforce. Perhaps show that their workers attended more training classes, learned more skills, were more flexible in the various jobs that they could do, and would make your business better.

I understand how the false conception of the Marxian labor theory of value got us here, but why are we staying here?