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The Spectacle Blog
There’s been a lot of fuss recently from respected libertarian thinkers like J.D. Tuccille and Jonathan Adler about whether or not right to work laws are libertarian. They are offensive to the principle of freedom of contract, the argument goes, and so no right-thinking free marketeer should support them.
Up to a point, Lord Copper. Tuccille and co. are right that they are offensive to freedom of contract. Should an employer so wish, he should be able to enter in to an exclusive negotiating arrangement with a union and require that all his or her employees join that union if they want to have a job at that company.
So far so good. Yet the possibility of such arrangement does not exist. The default position of federal labor law is that if a union gains a simple majority of votes cast in a workplace (50 percent plus one), it is authorized as the exclusive bargaining representative for all workers in that bargaining unit, including those who voted against the union. This is also demonstrably unlibertarian.
States cannot overturn U.S. law. That is why, as my colleague Ivan Osorio explains, states pass right to work laws. They are the only practical option for those who find the framework damaging to worker freedom.
Yes, it would be better to repeal or reform the Wagner Act, but that is extremely unlikely to happen at present. Passage of right to work laws allows some relief from that oppressive statute and also makes the eventual reform of the Wagner Act much more likely. When enough states have passed right to work laws (there are currently 24, including Michigan) then there might be enough groundswell to overcome the entrenched opposition of the union bosses in D.C.
As CEI founder Fred Smith has said, when you are in enemy territory the route back to safety is not always a straight line.
View all comments (6) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Iain Murray
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/12/13/right-to-work-is-more-libertar
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Oldefarte| 12.13.12 @ 9:27PM
This is a very simple process. During the industrial revolution when companies abused worker safeties etc, labor laws were necessary for their workplace protections against same. There are now sufficient laws that protect workers from all kind of abuses and labor union particiaption is no longer required. Granted the right of free assembly should be guaranteed to all workers, but not the labor unions' economic power over their salaries and benefits. Labor union wages are excessively higher than that demanded by the supply and demand for their labor, and this excess has resulted in companies facing same to offshore their operations overseas, causing the loss of the employment/jobs which previously existed. A huge element in the current high unemployment rate in this country is due to this excess of labor unions' oriented wages and benefits, and if labor unions' power over salaries and benefits were outlawed, manufacturing jobs would return to this country from overseas [as the transportation costs from same would thus be eliminated and US manufacturers would then be much more competitive with those of foreign countries!!!!!!!!!!!!
JmsA| 12.13.12 @ 10:28PM
Thank you. Someone had to point that out. Well done.
spike59| 12.14.12 @ 6:40AM
Right-to-work IS libertarian: forcing a worker to join, or pay financial tribute to, a union in order to work for an employer who wants to hire his services is about as 'non-libertarian' as it gets
Dai Alanye | 12.14.12 @ 9:23AM
"They [Right To Work Laws] are offensive to the principle of freedom of contract, the argument goes, and so no right-thinking free marketeer should support them."
This stands as more proof of the faulty underpinnings of the Libertarian political philosophy. While exaggerating the role of the individual versus society, Libertarians seem unable to maintain consistency with regard to individual rights. Whence comes the right of employers and unions to determine the allegiances and capture the wages of individual workers? Doesn't the 13th Amendment come into question here? Or at least its aura or penumbra?
C. Vernon Crisler | 12.14.12 @ 10:16AM
However, states are overturning federal law. Witness all the states that have legalized medical marijuana. That used to be called nullification.
fmm| 12.14.12 @ 11:22AM
"Should an employer so wish, he should be able to enter in to an exclusive negotiating arrangement with a union and require that all his or her employees join that union if they want to have a job at that company."
But it is never the employer who wants this. It is the unions who force employees to join unions against their will. Unions are antithetical to an individuals right to make decisions for themselves, and their policies are right in line with those in government who want to take freedom away from individuals. Oldefart is exactly right.