Today’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is George Leef, Director of Research for the John W. Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.
You have probably seen bumper stickers reading “I’m Pro-Choice and I Vote.” We know the context – abortion. The person who placed the sticker wants us to know that she (or maybe he) does not want any governmental interference when it comes to a woman’s decision on terminating a pregnancy.
If people who are “pro-choice” on abortion were philosophically consistent, you would expect them also to be “pro-choice” with regard to the matter of union representation. Many, however, are not.
Those thoughts are occasioned by a recent and rather surprising piece in the Wall Street Journal by former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern. He took issue with the virtually unanimous support in his party for a bill with an astoundingly misleading name – The Employee Free Choice Act. That legislation would require the federal government to certify a labor union as the bargaining agent of the workers based only on signed cards purportedly showing that a majority wants the union’s representation.
The Journal published my letter praising McGovern for taking a principled but unpopular stance. I argued, however, that the Democrats (and indeed all Americans) should rethink the nation’s approach to labor relations law. I will expand on my argument here.
Our basic law regarding labor relations is the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), passed during the depths of the Great Depression as a campaign favor to the unions for having helped elect FDR. It was and still is special-interest legislation par excellence.
The very worst feature of the NLRA is that it turned the question of union representation from one of individual choice into one of democracy. Prior to the NLRA, unions were no different from other voluntary organizations under the law. People were free to join or quit as they saw fit. After the act, once a majority voted – in a secret ballot election – for union representation, all of the workers had to accept it whether they liked it or not.
That was bad enough, but the “democratization” of unionism had a peculiar aspect. In our political democracy, we get to choose periodically to keep or vote out of office those whom the voters have chosen to represent them. With workplace democracy, however, there are no regular elections in which the workers have the opportunity of dropping the incumbent union in favor of a different union or having no union at all.
Once a union has been certified, it remains in place until it is decertified. While it is possible to do that if enough workers are dissatisfied, the deck is stacked against the decertification process. In many unionized companies, the union has been in place so long that not one of the current employees has ever voted on it.
The “card check” procedure that McGovern rightly criticized would make union organizing much easier. Union zealots could pressure workers to get them to sign or deceive them as to what they were signing. Furthermore, a secret ballot protects the anonymity of each individual in the decision. With “card check,” those who tell the union “No” could be making targets of themselves since unions have a long, nasty history of violence against people who go against them.
Any American who really favors freedom of choice – Democrats, Republicans, independents, and those who are apolitical – should want to see unions treated the same way under the law as are all other private organizations. People should be free to join them or contract for their services just as they are free to join clubs, churches, or civic groups or to contract with an Internet service provider or lawn care company. We don’t insist that those decisions be made democratically, with people who don’t like the majority’s preference compelled to go along with it. There is no reason why a decision on union representation should be made democratically, either.
Wouldn’t it be terribly inconvenient for a company if it dealt with one union representing some workers, another union representing others, and individually with those who wanted to be independent? Maybe it would be somewhat inconvenient, but here an observation of Thomas Jefferson’s is pertinent: “The inconveniences of too little government are far less harmful than the inconveniences of too much.” Whatever the problems that might arise for employers in not having a simple “union or no union” situation, they’re small in comparison with the problems that arise when we compel people to accept union representation when they don’t want it. Freedom can be messy, but it’s better than neatness or order imposed by force.
If a union didn’t have the complete support of the workers, though, wouldn’t it be too weak to win better pay and working conditions from the management? No. Before the time when the NLRA gave unions their monopoly power, they were not without success in bargaining for better pay and working conditions. In any case, it isn’t properly the business of the government to pick sides and try to help one group of citizens gain at the expense of another. Government shouldn’t try to help workers any more than it should help employers, or consumers, or vegetarians, or conservationists, or any other group. The job of the government is to protect the rights of everyone.
Furthermore, conferring monopoly powers on labor unions has costs for workers. It takes away much of their ability to control what the union does. What we call consumer sovereignty doesn’t apply only to the relationship between buyers and sellers; it also applies to the relationship between individuals and all sorts of voluntary organizations. If a club or church does things that upset members, they can just leave. That prospect exerts a disciplining effect on the decision-makers. With monopoly unions, however, consumer sovereignty is washed away. Workers who don’t like what the union does — or who just don’t think it is worth what it costs — are not allowed just to leave. Of course, they can quit their jobs, but that is an awfully high price to pay.
The NLRA (which, incidentally, contains other provisions that ought to give people who favor freedom pause, especially its limitations on free speech) is one of the worst pieces of special-interest legislation ever passed. It’s blatantly contrary to individual choice. So why do so few politicians (and almost no Democrats) want to repeal it? The answer is simple: money. Union officials give lots of it to politicians they like and spend like mad to defeat those who stand against them.