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May 21, 2006
Hutchinson on Contemporary Unionism as a Fraternal Conceit
Harry Hutchinson (George Mason) has posted on SSRN his new paper: Contemporary Unionism as a Fraternal Conceit? A Review of George E. Leef's "Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right to Work Movement.
From the abstract:
With the publication of "Free Choice for Workers: a History of the Right-to-Work Movement," George Leef offers a prudential basis tied to experience coupled with informal logic implicating ultimate values in order to reexamine compulsory labor unions and to contest the justification offered in support of America's labor laws. Leef's perspective delegitimizes compulsory unionism on ethical and empirical grounds.
Demonstrating that statutory compulsion fails to direct society down the pathway to progress, the book reveals that the road to serfdom can often be paved by bureaucratic regulation. Carefully examining history and contemporary events, this book contributes to the richly textured debate about the normative role of unions in a putatively free society. Aptly appreciated, George Leef's reassessment offers an essentially contractarian and liberal model of labor relations that rests on a vision of individual rights that have a clearly defined, independent existence predating society.
From this perspective, George Leef specifies liberty as a desirable good in and of itself which is placed in harm's way by progressive ideals and constructs. Far from operating as an anti-union document, "Free Choice for Workers" functions as a pro-union manuscript grounded in the conclusion that unions operate as defensible institutions and laudable associations, when and only if, they represent workers who join voluntarily.
You can check out this review by Hutchinson on Leef's provocative book here.
PS
May 21, 2006 in Scholarship | Permalink
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Comments
Ah, the old argument that a few folks in jobs that have bargaining units because the majority of workers there want to be in a bargaining unit (and, often, got one only after overcoming significant obstacles employers put in the way) aren't *voluntary* union members. Why is this the only argument that libertarians and right-wingers ever make that seems to acknowledge that people aren't entirely free to leave their jobs voluntarily if they don't like what's going on there?
More broadly, data from the real world -- including but not limited to the the fact that survey after survey shows that many more workers would like to be in unions than are actually in unions, at least in the private sector -- demonstrates that the problem isn't that too many folks are "involuntarily" being roped into unions, but rather that American labor law permits American employers to prevent too many folks that genuinely want to be in a union from being in one.
Posted by: Joseph Slater | May 21, 2006 2:46:27 PM
Surveys may show that more workers would like to be in unions than are actually in unions. And it may well be that American labor law allows employers to exclude workers who want to be in a union. I don't disagree with either statement. But still, I can't help but have some sympathy for those who feel themselves afflicted by compulsory unionism. Shouldn't employees have the right to choose whether they want to be in or not (i.e., right-to-work laws)? Wouldn't both groups have what they want then?
Posted by: Christopher Timmermans | May 22, 2006 4:59:19 PM
Chris:
Glad that graduation hasn't lessened your interest in this stuff!
The issue with right to work laws is the "free rider" problem: the union still has a duty to fairly represent all the employees who are in the bargaining unit. Specifically, even though an employee pays no dues to a union, the union not only has to represent the employee in bargaining, but also in grievance/arbitrations.
When I was in practice, I represented federal sector unions, and the federal sector statute makes any kind of union security agreement illegal. On a number of occasions, I and my law firm represented employees who were bargaining unit members but didn't pay any dues. That type of representation cost the union thousands of dollars a pop. Sometimes the employee would join later, but sometimes he/she wouldn't.
Finally, what about the libertarian argument that employers should be able to require whatever they want to require as a condition of employment? Remember, in states that are not right to work, the NLRA doesn't require agency fee agreements, it's just that they are legal. Entirely apart from the NLRA, under default at-will rules, an employer could require all of its employees to become members of the zoo, the art museum, or most other types of organizations, as a condition of employment.
Posted by: Joseph Slater | May 23, 2006 10:00:27 AM
