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Collective bargaining is unAmerican February 15, 2023
Collective bargaining does not occur voluntarily. If it wasn't forced on employers by the National Labor Relations Act, none of them would participate. America is the land of the free; forcing employers to engage in collective bargaining is unAmerican. There are acceptable limits on freedom, such as laws against theft, physical assault and murder. But the harm resulting from an employer choosing not to listen to his employees' demand for higher wages does not justify intervention by the federal government.
It is not just that forced collective bargaining curtails the freedom of the employer. The collective bargaining process itself is a farce. The original idea was that the union and the employer would sit at a table, discuss their differences and arrive at a compromise. That was never going to happen. The union is there because it wants higher pay for its members. The employer has no reason to pay more because it can get all the employees it needs at the current rate. There is no way both sides can amiably agree.
Without an agreement, the union traditionally takes to picketing, and if that doesn't work, a strike. Both are designed to harm the employer. Picketing portrays the employer as a heartless, greedy corporation and a strike shuts down production by depriving the company of its workforce. Although the law allows the employer to replace striking workers, union picketers attempt to scare them away by calling them scabs and threatening physical harm.
The replacement workers are people attempting to better themselves and their families by taking the jobs at a pay rate union members have rejected. They don't deserve to demonized as "scabs" and threatened with violence, yet it is the people's party - the Democrats - that so comfortably smears them as less than human.
Without forced collective bargaining, what is a worker to do when they feel they are underpaid? They can look for a job that pays better. That is what non-union workers do, and they make up 94.1% of the private sector workforce. In the meantime, they can hold on to the job they've got.
In passing the National Labor Relations Act, Congress legitimized and institutionalized hostile confrontation in employee-employer relations, an area of commerce that – like others – should be entirely peaceful and free from conflict. The government doesn't require “bargaining” for commercial transactions other than labor contracts, and yet there is no violence and turmoil in those areas. Food processors are not required to bargain with farmers. Walmart is not required to bargain with suppliers. Grocers are not required to bargain with shoppers. These parties choose or choose not to do business with each other - no hard feelings. Neither is forced to accept terms it feels are unfair.
Pumped-up wages obtained through forced collective bargaining do not help the economy. There is no increase in production, so the union members' gain must come out of the pockets of others. Higher wages force the employer to increase prices, which results in declining sales, which means fewer jobs. The cruelest cost of above-market wages is unemployment.
I am a Democrat, but I am disgusted by the party's support of collective bargaining. It is a symbiotic relationship: the Democratic party promotes legislation that favors the unions (example) and the unions direct the bulk of their financial support to Democrats - almost 90% in the 2016 election cycle. If anything at all good can come from the Trump administration and Republican control of Congress, it would be the repeal of the National Labor Relations Act.
Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text me at 517-730-2638. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.
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