> House prices wouldn't be so high if we had unions.

In Switzerland, all the large unions (railroad workers, public service workers, ect.) have so much money and so much access to cheap credit, they can (and frequently did in the past) start housing co-ops for their members.

This results in large developments in the middle of the most expensive cities, where only union members have a chance to rent. And even those have year-long waiting list on every new development.

Since the housing co-op is non-profit and pays rock bottom interest rates on its loans, rent is frequently around half the fair market rate.

Where did those unions get so much money from?

They are decades old organizations with millions of members. That is probably a drop in the bucket to them.

Dues, I imagine. If you don't strike very often, the war chest keeps filling...

That war chest, in combination with it being unthinkable that a big union goes bankrupt, and the fact that they are building real estate, pretty much means they can borrow more money dirt cheap.

I guess it just seems strange to me for a union to be so rich, yet their members can't afford to live in regular housing. I grew up in a factory town in America with a unionized workforce and despite the things people say about American unions, the workers there all did very well. At least until the plant was sold to private equity about 10 years ago... I hear bad things now... but for several generations the union succeeded in getting the workers paid enough to be regular members of the community, not some sort of second class living in company/union housing.

The union housing co-ops are just another perk the union provides some of its members. They don't have nearly enough co-ops for all members. They are extremely popular - rent significantly below market rate, and no land lord as the co-op is administrated by the residents themselves.

Otherwise, those apartments are completely normal and indistinguishable from any other development in a central urban neighbourhood.

And yes, union jobs pay decent salary in Europe. Probably one of the easiest/safest ways to a middle class life, especially without going to college.

> Bad teachers are a noteworthy cause of poor schools

You have that completely backward. Virtually all bad teachers start out hopeful and excited to teach kids, that's why they become teachers in the first place. They are then worn and beaten down by bad schools. Bad schools are mostly caused by bad students, who are disrespectful, disruptive, get into fights, etc. Bad students are mostly caused by bad parenting. If they aren't raised to respect adults, education, authority and their peers, then there is little that teachers can do about it. The reason "bad schools" have trouble keeping enough teachers despite high levels of state and federal funding is because the students burn through the teachers quickly. The teachers who hang on for a long time at those schools are often ones that develop coping strategies like not giving a shit, finding pleasure in yelling at kids, etc.

Read the thread in its entirety please, you are quoting me quoting someone else.

What is the mechanism under which houses would be more affordable if employees had more money thanks to the unions? Real estate (and by extension rents) will take up any available slack on income.

> What is the mechanism under which houses would be more affordable if employees had more money thanks to the unions?

Employees have more money thanks to unions -> those deriving income from capital have less money -> narrower distribution of wealth -> goods (including housing) which both classes pursue are more affordable to the working class. QED.

Housing prices rose much, much faster than inflation or rises in wages. So they are obviously not driven by income. Try again.

If people normally paid cash for houses, that might be an interesting point. But most people rent money to buy a house (even while ironically trumpeting "renting is throwing money away"). Like the previous commenter pointed out, real estate-related rents will expand to take up any available slack in income.

Now, save recently, the cost to rent money for real estate was in steady decline. That means even a constant income could afford to rent an increasing amount of money. As a result, the price of housing was able to rise disproportionally to income, but proportionally to rent.

I think gp was referring to tenants/renters unions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_union

They are quite common in the UK.

> Real estate (and by extension rents) will take up any available slack on income.

Only if allowed to do so - but yes, landlord are leeches who do nothing and in return soak up every penny of income they can from their tenants.

However, isn't the typical market-capitalist argument to this, "if they could be making more money now, they would?" Don't "markets" set the price of real estate?

Markets don't, but it's really funny to me when people argue against good things, such as increasing minimum wage, with absurdities, like somehow a minimum wage increase is simply a subsidy for landlords.