All Posts Tagged With: "National Labor Relations Act"

Crony Unionism: Government Sector

In my last column I illustrated how private-sector unions depend on government cronies to keep them afloat. In the government sector it is much, much worse. It is nothing less than a conspiracy between politicians, bureaucrats, and unions to create and sustain a fourth branch of government specifically designed to increase the cost, size, and [...]

21Sep2011 | Charles W. Baird | 2 comments | Continued

EFCA and Compromise

As proposed, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would 1) replace secret-ballot union representation elections with card-check certification of unions as exclusive (monopoly) bargaining agents for workers in their workplaces; 2) impose compulsory-interest arbitration on employers who do not agree to a first union contract within 130 days; and 3) increase penalties on alleged unfair [...]

19Aug2009 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued

Organizing and the Organized

Congress permits unions to bargain for workers who do not want such representation, and it compounds this violation of freedom of association by permitting unions to force workers they represent to pay union dues and fees as a condition of continued employment. So-called union security has given rise to a circus of legal disputes which [...]

24Apr2009 | Charles W. Baird | 4 comments | Continued

How Bad Can it Get?

In August the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF) in Washington state released its State of Labor 2008 (the Report), which warns of several perils emanating from the growth of government-sector collective bargaining and offers suggestions for ameliorating them. (The Report is available in PDF here .) I predict these perils will soon be much more severe [...]

20Jan2009 | Charles W. Baird | 1 comment | Continued

Worker Freedom in Peril

The Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) recently published its 2007 Index of Worker Freedom (IWF).The index ranks each of the 50 states on the basis of ten variables that affect the freedom of workers. “Freedom” is defined properly as the absence of interferences with individual worker choices. After explaining the ten variables used and identifying [...]

1Oct2008 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued

Closing a Malevolent Circle: The Employee Free Choice Act

In 2006, 7.4 percent of American private-sector workers were unionized. That figure has fallen every year since 1955, when it was close to 35 percent. Despite the unjustifiable privileges granted to private-sector unions by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), they are almost economically irrelevant. But they are not politically irrelevant. Collectively unions spend at [...]

1Jul2007 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued

Hayek on Closed Shops and Yellow Dogs

Charles Baird is a professor of economics and the director of the Smith Center for Private Enterprise Studies at California State University at East Bay . In my December 2006 column I discussed some of Hayek’s classical-liberal views on the rule of law and labor unions. In brief, Hayek approved of voluntary unionism based on [...]

1Apr2007 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued

Hayek on the Rule of Law and Unions

In F. A. Hayek’s mind the rule of law has two equally important parts. Like most writers on the subject he argued that the rule of law requires everyone, including those who wield government powers, to be bound by the same set of rules. He called this principle “isonomia” (Greek for “equal law”). Isonomia, by [...]

1Dec2006 | Charles W. Baird | 2 comments | Continued

Freedom 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 | Continued

The Government-Created Right-to-Work Issue

The principles involved in right-to-work laws are identical with those involved in [workplace antidiscrimination laws.] Both interfere with the freedom of the employment contract, in the one case by specifying that a particular color or religion cannot
be made a condition of employment; in the other that
membership in a union cannot be.

1Jan2006 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued

Employee Free Choice and Top-Down Organizing

The good news is that American union membership in the private sector fell from 8.2 percent in 2003 to 7.9 percent of the labor force in 2004. (In 1900 the figure was 7 percent without any union-friendly legislation on the books.) Over the same time the market share of government-employee unions fell from 37.2 to [...]

1Jun2005 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued

On 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 | Continued

Government-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 | Continued

Unions on the Run

In 2000 the rate of private-sector unionization in the United States was only 9 percent, a figure that has been falling precipitously since the early 1950s. John Sweeney became president of the AFL-CIO in 1995, when the private sector unionization rate was 14.9 percent, promising that he would reverse that decline. The rate has declined [...]

1Feb2002 | Charles W. Baird | 1 comment | Continued

Unions Draft Temporary Workers

Under the doctrine that the Constitution is a “living document” that must constantly be reinterpreted to keep up with the times, the Supreme Court often ignores its plain text and imposes what it considers to be good results. Last August, in a consolidated decision involving two cases—M.B. Sturgis, Inc., and Jeffboat Division—the National Labor Relations [...]

1Aug2001 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued

It Depends on What the Meaning of "Advice" Is

After the November 2000 election then-President Clinton worked overtime to issue executive orders imposing regulations by presidential fiat that he was unable to persuade Congress to adopt. From the creation of national monuments that place millions of acres of land out of bounds to everyone except those approved by the environmentalist establishment, to workplace safety [...]

1May2001 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued

Congress and Public Safety Unionism

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) applies to unionism in private-sector employment, except in the railroad and airline industries, where the Railway Labor Act sets the rules.No federal statute regarding unionism applies to state and local government employees. Rather, each state adopts its own rules, and 20 states have chosen not to engage in compulsory collective bargaining with unions representing public safety employees (such as police, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel).

1Feb2001 | Charles W. Baird | 0 comments | Continued
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