Quick Hits: 73 Years of Entrenched Federal Forced Unionism Privileges, and the Ugly Reality of Big Labor Racism

Will Collins — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:31:53 -0400

A few Right to Work-related updates from over the holiday weekend:

1.) July 5th marked the 73rd anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act. This legislation, originally enacted in 1935, imposes union officials as middlemen between management and workers. While reformers thought they were curtailing the worst excesses with the Taft-Hartley Amendments in 1947, the NLRA continued to give government backing to Big Labor's monopoly bargaining privileges while actually increasing the government force behind an immoral policy of forcing workers to pay dues for often unwanted union "representation."

Alternatives to Compulsory Unionization?

Will Collins — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:07:29 -0400

The Heritage Foundation has just put up an interesting -- if at times confusing -- new web memo on possible alternatives to compulsory unionization. One of the more salient points the author raises is that the legislation governing workplace relations - the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) - is almost entirely obsolete. Times have changed since 1935 (the year the bill was first drafted), and the workplace now emphasizes cooperation over confrontation between management and labor:

That economy no longer exists. Businesses today rely on feedback and communication from employees. Employers do not simply give top-down orders, but incorporate bottom-up communication and employee discretion. The line between workers and management has increasingly blurred, and most workers want cooperative—not adversarial—relations with their employers.

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