What's our competition like?

There are 4 types of competition in a free market (Ebert&Griffin, pp.16-18):

1. Perfect competition, where all producers are small, and the # of firms is large; no single firm determines the price of the products; the price paid by each consumer is lowest, and the quality of the product is highest; otherwise, people go elsewhere;
2. Monopolistic competition, where numerous buyers and relatively numerous sellers compete, but not by price; brand names, design or styling, and advertising is used to "differentiate" the products;
3. Oligopolies, where a handful of sellers try to control the price of their products, and make it hard for new producers to enter into the market;
4. Monopolies, where there is only 1 producer of a good or service, and they control the price paid by all consumers (within limits).

To analogize:

Our Union is a monopoly for us - it's the only one we've got, and we're willing to pay the price we must for it's services.

Our Branch is operating like an oligopoly - it limits how many of us will be allowed to "produce", determines what we can produce, and distributes rewards or favors to whom the leaders choose.

Our Canditiates for election, and our Officers, are in monopolistic competition with one another; they seek to distinguish themselves by their "brand", and your associations with them, rather than by their "price".

And we, the members, operate in pure competition with one another. Each of us is free to promote our point of view; to persuade our co-workers; to work for which candidate(s) we want to see win, and to fight for which principles we believe in. Or not.