Economics Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker has joined the long list of intellectuals and academics opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act.   On The Becker-Posner Blog, he stated:

Any substantial shift of federal and state governments toward pro-union regulations would harm the American economy and the position of the typical employee. As Posner indicates, unions want greater monopoly power so that they can raise the wages and other benefits of union members above their competitive levels. Unfortunately, the effects of this are to reduce earnings for non-union workers, shift production outside the US, or toward states with less pro-union laws, and shift production in unionized plants away from labor and toward capital. None of these changes are beneficial to the efficiency and performance of the American economy, especially in a global environment.

Joining Becker, is his co-blogger, Richard Posner, a University of Chicago Law professor as well as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh District (Chicago). Posner reiterated the point by saying,

“We especially do not need an uptick in adversarial unionism during what increasingly appears to be a depression. The fact that Democrats in Congress should be pressing for a revival of the union movement at this time indicates a lack of understanding of the economics of depressions.”