Suppose a union has negotiated a closed-shop arrangement (in a country where such arrangements are legal) with an employer that possesses monopsony power in its labor market. The union has a kind of monopoly in the supply of labor. A situation in which a monopsony buyer faces a monopoly seller is called bilateral monopoly. Wages in this model are indeterminate, with the actual wage falling somewhere between the pure monopoly and pure monopsony outcomes.
If the union has monopoly power over the supply of labor and faces a monopsony purchaser of the labor the union represents, the wage negotiated between the two will be indeterminate. The employer will hire Lmunits of the labor per period. The employer wants a wage Wmon the supply curve S. The union will seek a wage close to the maximum the employer would be willing to pay for this quantity, Wu, at the intersection of the marginal revenue product (MRP) and the marginal factor cost (MFC) curves. The actual wage will be somewhere between these two amounts.
Figure 14.7shows the same monopsony situation in a labor market that was shown in Figure 14.3 The employer will seek to pay a wage Wm for a quantity of labor Lm. The union will seek Wu, the highest wage the employer would be willing to pay for that quantity of labor. This wage is found on the MRP curve. The model of bilateral monopoly does not tell us the wage that will emerge. Whether the final wage will be closer to what the union seeks or closer to what the employer seeks will depend on the bargaining strength of the union and of the employer.
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