Unions push controls on the economy
June 21, 2007| By Nathaniel Ward
Big Labor and its allies are in a bit of a bind, Heritage labor expert James Sherk writes. After decades of declining membership, they’re forced either to adapt or, like other special interests, ask the government to prop them up.
Watch as Sherk outlines the problems with Big Labor’s strategy in a new Heritage video.
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“Union leaders have selected curtain number two,” Sherk explains, and are “using their clout in the new Congress to push the cynically misnamed ‘Employee Free Choice Act.’”
This bill has several onerous provisions, including one to remove workers’ right to a secret ballot in unionization elections. But it gets worse: “Almost overlooked is the binding arbitration section of the act, which would do even more to undermine workers’ rights and a free economy.”
Under this misguided plan, if unions and employers can’t agree promptly on a work contract, Washington bureaucrats step in to settle things, Sherk continues. “Government officials could dictate wages and working conditions to any company unfortunate enough to be organized.” Never mind that extending government controls onto broader swathes of the economy is hardly good policy.
Unions hope that government arbiters would grant better contracts than they could negotiate on their own. And they hope that these government-dictated contracts will revive their moribund movement, which Sherk argues remains attached to an “outdated” New-Deal economic model.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
