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Do Unions Really Raise Wages? 123One device consists in restricting the membership of the union onsome other basis than that of proved competence or skill. This restrictionmay take many forms: it may consist in charging new workersexcessive initiation fees; in arbitrary membership qualifications; in discrimination,open or concealed, on grounds of religion, race, or sex;in some absolute limitation on the number of members; or in exclusion,by force if necessary, not only of the products of nonunionlabor, but of the products even of affiliated unions in other States orcities.The most obvious case in which intimidation and force are used toput or keep the wages of a particular union above the real marketworth of its members’ services is that of a strike. A peaceful strike ispossible. To the extent that it remains peaceful, it is a legitimate laborweapon, even though it is one that should be used rarely and as a lastresort. If his workers as a body withhold their labor, they may bring astubborn employer, who has been underpaying them, to his senses. Hemay find that he is unable to replace these workers by workers equallygood who are willing to accept the wage that the former have nowrejected. But the moment workers have to use intimidation or violenceto enforce their demands—the moment they use pickets to preventany of the old workers from continuing at their jobs, or to prevent theemployer from hiring new permanent workers to take their places—their case becomes questionable. For the pickets are really being used,not primarily against the employer, but against other workers. Theseother workers are willing to take the jobs that the old employees havevacated, and at the wages that the old employees now reject. The factproves that the other alternatives open to the new workers are not asgood as those that the old employees have refused. If, therefore, theold employees succeed by force in preventing new workers from takingtheir place, they prevent these new workers from choosing the bestalternative open to them, and force them to take something worse. Thestrikers are therefore insisting on a position of privilege, and are usingforce to maintain this privileged position against other workers.If the foregoing analysis is correct, the indiscriminate hatred of the“strikebreaker” is not justified. If the strikebreakers consist merely of