The Cost of Labor

THE ONE COMPLAINT most often heard about labor unions is that they have overstepped their authority, become too powerful, gone too far. Its hard to imagine anyone thinking that in a nation like the United States where only about ten percent of workers belong to unions, and unions have been declining in membership for decades.

Organized labor has been under atack from the corporate industrial complex and government for forty years, and the attack has been successful. One at a time, the states are enacting "right to work" laws, prohibiting membership in a labor union from being a requirement for a job.

The united states government began the attack on labor unions with passage of the Taft-Hartley act in 1947, making right to work laws legal. Since then, twenty three states have enacted such laws.

On the surface it sounds like right to work strikes a blow for freedom and choice; it is, of course, actually part of the attack against labor unions, and a very effective tactic in the war between the rich and poor. Still, labor unions, if they serve a function now, should be able to thrive with or without right to work laws.

However, those labor unions which still exist in america have obviously improved their lot in life considerably for their members by virtue of their collecting bargaining power. IN the auto industry, the electriciains and plumbers professions, and many other factory industries workers are making decent, if not outright desirable wages.

The conservatives who think that labor union destroy free enterprise would probably have that opinion simply because labor unions exist in the first place, not becaue they have become too powefrul. Please remember, for most of the history of the labor movement, political conservatives in america thought the labor movement should not exist, that it was an evil illegal conspiracy.

The most powerful labor union in the world, perhaps, is the major league baseball players union, which has only existed for about forty years. So powerful is this union that its members enjoy astronomical salaries, and great bargaining power with their employers. Its basiclly a level playing field in baseball, or maybe tilted too far in favor of the players.

Labor unions do that; they even the playing field. And please notice that the auto industry, the electrician , plumbing, and carpentry professions, among others, are alvie and well, even with the strangulating effect of organized labor. It may be that labor unions, when all is said and done, do not so much strangle an industry or economy, but rather uplift it, by raising the level of the worker to its proper plaece, with the free market system.

so maybe labor unions are as natural a part of free enterprise as supply, demand, and corporations.

Bb

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