It seems that many of ALP's readers wholly support unions and union activities against Wal-Mart in the US, Canada, and beyond North America. Some readers may think that I'm just misguided; others believe me a dangerous and ignorant monster, especially since my distrust for unions appears one-sided. But my distrust is not for collective bargaining itself, but for the bludgeon-like nature of the law governing employer-employee relations, and how union leaders have figuratively incorporated the bludgeon into their negotiations, rhetoric, and PR.
I'd like to offer somebody else's explanation (taken completely out of his very different context), why I think current law regarding union-certification and arbitration is not "fair" (if I may use such a word intelligibly):
There is an enormous chasm between a situation in which both parties in a dispute seek arbitration from a third party, and a situation in which one party in the dispute is able to force the other party to accept the decision of a third party arbiter. In the first case, the two parties have mutually agreed to let someone else settle their differences. In the second case, there is no such agreement....The law presents a pretense of mutual agreement, when in fact none exists. In other words, unions want to use the power of law to create "rights" -- to form a union itself, to a living wage, to a share of profits, to determine hours of work -- that would not exist in a society of mutual agreement on the terms of exchange.All that is necessary to provide the pretext for judicial review is to have one single plaintiff ask the court to decide whether the court should decide -- and each time the court decides that, yes, it should decide, it simultaneously decides that, no, the people cannot decide.
Posted by Kevin on June, 27 2005 at 09:01 AM
