The natural function of a trade union and the one for which it was historically conceived is to represent those employees who want collective representation in bargaining with their employers over terms of employment. But note that this function is perverted the moment a union claims the right to represent employees who do not want representation, or conducts activities that have nothing to do with terms of employment (e.g. political activities), or tries to deal with an industry as a whole instead of with individual employers.
As America turned increasingly, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, from an agricultural nation into an industrial one, and as the size of business enterprises expanded, individual wage earners found themselves at a distinct disadvantage in dealing with their employers over terms of employment. The economic power of the large enterprises, as compared with that of the individual employee, was such that wages and conditions of employment were pretty much what the employer decided they would be. Under these conditions, as a means of increasing their economic power, many employees chose to band together and create a common agent for negotiating with their employers.
As time went on, we found that the working man’s right to bargain through a collective agent needed legal protection; accordingly Congress enacted laws—notably certain provisions of the Clayton Act, the Norris LaGuardia Act and the Wagner Act—to make sure that employees would be able to bargain collectively.
This is not the place to examine those laws in detail. It is clear, however, that they have over-accomplished their purpose. Thanks to some unwise provisions and to the absence of others that should have been included, the delicate balance of power we sought to achieve between labor and management has shifted, in avalanche proportions, to labor’s advantage. Or, more correctly to the advantage of union leaders. This mammoth concentration of power in the hands of a few men is, I repeat, a grave threat to the nation’s economic stability, and to the nation’s political processes. More important, it has taken from the individual wage earner a large portion of his freedom.
The time has come, not to abolish unions or deprive them of deserved gains; but to redress the balance—to restore unions to their proper role in a free society.
We have seen that unions perform their natural function when three conditions are observed: association with the union is voluntary; the union confines its activities to collective bargaining; the bargaining is conducted with the employer of the workers concerned. Let us briefly treat with each of these conditions, noting the extent to which they are violated today, and the remedial action we are called upon to take.
Freedom of Association. Here the argument is so plain that I wonder why elaboration is necessary. What could be more fundamental than the freedom to associate with other men, or not to associate, as each man’s conscience and reason dictates? Yet compulsory unionism is the rule rather than the exception today in the ranks of organized labor. Millions of laboring men are required to join the union that is the recognized bargaining agent at the place they work. Union shop agreements deny to these laboring men the right to decide for themselves what union they will join, or indeed, whether they will join at all. The exercise of freedom for many of these citizens, means the loss of their jobs.
Here is the kind of thing that can happen as the result of compulsory unionism. X, a family man in Pennsylvania had been a union member in good standing for over twenty years. When the United Electrical Workers became the recognized bargaining agent at his plant, he refused to join on the grounds the UEW was Communist dominated—a judgment that had been made by the CIO itself when it expelled the UEW in 1950. The result, since his employer had a union shop agreement with the UEW, was that X lost his job.
The remedy here is to give freedom of association legal protection. And that is why I strongly favor enactment of State right-to-work laws which forbid contracts that make union membership a condition of employment. These laws are aimed at removing a great blight on the contemporary American scene, and I am at a loss to understand why so many people who so often profess concern for “civil rights” and “civil liberties” are vehemently opposed to them. Freedom of association is one of the natural rights of man. Clearly, therefore, it should also be a “civil” right. Right-to-work laws derive from the natural law: they are simply an attempt to give freedom of association the added protection of civil law.
I am well aware of the “free loader” argument, so often advanced by union leaders in defense of compulsory unionism. The contention is that a man ought not to enjoy the benefits of an organization’s activities unless he contributes his fair share of their cost. I am unaware, however, of any other organization or institution that seeks to enforce this theory by compulsion. The Red Cross benefits all of us, directly or indirectly, but no one suggests that Red Cross donations be compulsory. It is one thing to say that a man should contribute to an association that is purportedly acting in his interest; it is quite another thing to say that he must do so. I believe that a man ought to join a union if it is a good union that is serving the interests of its members. I believe, moreover, that most men will give support to a union provided it is deserving of that support. There will always be some
