All Posts Tagged With: "exclusive representation"
Faculty Unions Versus Academic Legitimacy
The faculty at Montana State University in Bozeman will soon vote on whether to unionize. If a majority vote yes, the school will gradually descend into academic mediocrity or worse. The vast majority of unionized faculty in higher education are employed in government colleges and universities. This is because in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, [...]
1Jun2008 | Charles W. Baird | 2 comments | ContinuedPaycheck Protection: Much Less Than Meets the Eye
On June 14 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its unanimous verdict in Davenport v. Washington Education Association (WEA) in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of the “paycheck protection” section of a Washington state campaign-finance-regulation initiative adopted in 1992 by 72 percent of the voters. That section required labor unions to get the permission [...]
1Nov2007 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | ContinuedFreedom for Workers
In my January/February column this year I explained why I believe that, given the existence of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which regulates American labor-management relations, a classical liberal should support a national right-to-work-act. Last year Freeman book review editor George Leef published Free Choice for Workers: A History of the Right to Work [...]
1Sep2006 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | ContinuedShould Professors Be Allowed to Unionize?
A current dispute at a liberal-arts college in Wisconsin prompts me to ask whether professors should be allowed to unionize. For many years I have been interested in questions of labor law and probably would have been interested in this dispute even if it did not happen to involve my alma mater. Carroll College is [...]
1Mar2006 | George C. Leef | 0 comments | ContinuedHenry Hazlitt on Unions
I know of three (somewhat repetitive) sources for Hazlitt’s views on unions: Chapter 20, “Do Unions Really Raise Wages?” in Economics in One Lesson (1946); Chapter 13, “How Unions Reduce Real Wages,” in his The Conquest of Poverty (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1973); and his chapter in The Strike: For and Against, introduced by [...]
1Nov2004 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | ContinuedBack Toward Serfdom in New Zealand
In the September 2000 issue of this magazine I reported that the Labour Party in New Zealand, at the behest of labor unions, had repealed the 1991 Employment Contracts Act (ECA), which had abolished compulsory unionism there. In its place was substituted the Employment Relations Act (ERA) to help unions reverse their drastic decline in [...]
1Apr2004 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | ContinuedOn Freedom of Association
Freedom of association is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The relevant portion states, “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people peaceably to assemble.” Seems simple enough. We may assemble ourselves into whatever peaceful associations we choose, and the government is forbidden [...]
1Jul2002 | Charles W. Baird | 11 comments | ContinuedGovernment-Sector Unionism
In my February column I gave two examples of the decline of unionism in the private sector and pointed out that the picture is very different in the government sector. Whereas the unions’ private-sector market share in 2001 was 9 percent, in the government sector it was 37.4 percent (down slightly from 37.5 percent in [...]
1May2002 | Charles W. Baird | 3 comments | ContinuedAn Open Letter to the California Legislature
As a student of public choice theory, I understand why you support SB 1241, a mandatory agency-shop bill for California State University (CSU) faculty. After all, in the words of Ambrose Bierce, “politics is a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.” The California Faculty Association (CFA) supports you in the political marketplace, [...]
1Aug1999 | Charles W. Baird | 3 comments | ContinuedTony Blair and Fairness at Work
Tony Blair, prime minister of Great Britain, heads the “New Labour” Party. The old Labour Party was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the umbrella organization for most British unions. In 1976 Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan asserted that “no modern government can govern against the trade unions.” During the 1978–79 [...]
1May1999 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued-
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