TOS Blog: Daily Commentary from an Objectivist Perspective

The problem being solved here is that in many states, if the shop is unionized, the employee MUST join the union. “right to work” is just a convenient phrase that the conservatives are using.

so much for objective – you can have your union, and raises aquired for all union members, it’s just now that people don’t have to be blackballed for not being in a union – giving them a right to work anywhere

The history of unions is quite clear: they are
all coercive organizations–every single one–dedicated to using
physical violence to get their way.  They have been since the
beginning.  They are, in essence, criminal organizations, dedicated to
violence.  They are no different from the Mafia.
Since unions are at their essence coercive organizations, with
violence or the threat of violence as their raison d’etre, then, of
course, in a completely free society, they should not exist at all,
since the government would ban (and enforce the ban) on the initiation
of physical force or threats of force between individuals or groups of
individuals.  Trade associations might exist, and as they are not
coercive, perhaps some employers would require membership in trade
associations as a condition of employment, and that would be fine.
But non-coercive unions, like non-flat tabletops, non-wheeled
automobiles, non-mortal men, or non-cute kitties, do not exist, and
have never existed, and this fact needs to inform all of our
discussions about unions.  We look at unions today and see semi-peaceful
organizations.  But this is *not* the historical record.  They are
*not* the Rotary Club.  If the Wagner Act was repealed, unions would
return to violence, against industry, or more likely against other
workers (their real enemies).

The problem with saying that coercive organizations would not exist
in a free society is that when America was mostly
a free country, unions *did* exist, caused by the rise of Marxist
philosophy and some occasional deplorable abuses by employers.
Neither the violations of rights perpetrated by the unions nor the
violations of rights perpetrated by these very small numbers of
employers were dealt with by the government as the rights violations
they were, sometimes because of bad philosophy and sometimes because
of corruption or bad government policies.  So I take as my conclusion
that yes, even in a free society, organizations dedicated to violence
to achieve their goals will exist.  The question becomes then, can an
employer require prospective employees to join such an organization as
a condition of employment, and the answer is no.

A job is not a “right” of an employee.  But neither is a job�
the “property” of the employer.  A job is a *contract*
between two people.  There are certain things that are properly
enforceable in a contract, and some things that are clearly not
enforceable.  You can think of examples all day, but one obvious one
is that an employment contract cannot demand that each employee rob a
bank and bring the loot to the employer as a condition of employment.
What’s wrong with that, if it’s voluntary, I hear from my libertarian
friends?  Because it drops the context of what a contract actually
is.  A contract is both an agreement by two people about a mutually
beneficial trade, but also it is an agreement that the government is
charged with enforcing.  One can’t enter into a contract that has as
one of its conditions the violation of someone’s rights, since then
the government would be charged with enforcing the violation of
someone’s rights instead of protecting rights.  So no bank robbery as
a condition of employment.  The case is somewhat more subtle with
hiring only people who belong to the Mafia and pay money to the Mafia
Don out of their paycheck.  [This is the exact case of unions, and you
must hold this in your mind when you think about this issue].  Paying
dues, or lending material support, to a criminal organization or an
organization primarily dedicated to crime, is also a crime and would
be so in a free country.  So this employment contract would not be
enforceable in the courts.  How then would it be enforced in reality?
As it *was* enforced in the late nineteenth century: with a club or a
knife or a gun.

The Mafia analogy may strike some people as bizarre, since some local
unions have evolved into peaceful trade associations these days, and
many individual rank-and-file union members, some of whom I know, are
fine people. [No union bosses are fine people].  This apparent
benevolence of some unions today is because they are backed by an all-
powerful federal government, who wields the club for them.  But make
no mistake, the union bosses, like the Mafia Dons, make their true
nature evident when any of their precious government-supported special
privileges are even minutely threatened.  Look closely at what
happened in Wisconsin last year, all of the violence and intimidation
(threat of violence) that was perpetrated by unions in response to the
very mild reforms proposed by Gov Walker.

So, is right-to-work the ideal end state?  Of course not. Only a fully
free society with laissez-faire economics is.  But don’t make the
libertarian mistake on the one hand and say, “any voluntary contract
is fine” while dropping the context of what a contract is, or make the
better-is-the-enemy-of-perfection mistake either, as Ari does, and think that right-
to-work is some sort of violation of employers’ rights.  There’s not
an employer in the country (except maybe GM) who would impose a closed
shop if they had a choice.  In reality, right-to-work is a lifeline
thrown to drowning producers that will help keep them above water
until a more radical cultural change permits real reforms, such as the
repeal of the Wagner Act.  Plus, most importantly, it is something
individual states can do to lessen the reach of the federally-imposed
bureaucracy-union complex without federal legislation.  This alone
makes it worth supporting.  And since the moral is the practical, we
see that right-to-work states are doing better in both manufacturing
(heavily unionized to the point of destruction in closed shop states)
and local and state government finances (also heavily unionized) than
their counterparts.  Compare Virginia to Michigan.

Right-to-work is a good, pro-freedom interim step that can and should
be supported by all Objectivists and advocates of a free economy.

Ari, I think you miss the point of “right to work” laws. It’s MY right they protect; MY right to accept a job freely offered to me by an employer without having to either join a union or pay union dues. Contracts that would otherwise compel ME to be a member of a group I don’t care to join infringe on MY right of association – or not – as I see fit. 

Yes – the problem is the language used.  The intent of the law (which, Ari, you are right should not have to be passed, as the government has no business interfering in contracts between the employer and employee) is to allow those who do not wish to join a union, to continue to work in a “union shop” (which the employee should be able to do but for the pro-labor union laws that would not exist under laissez faire Capitalism).

We’ve been thrashing this one about in facebook threads because it seems insane. The major premise here is that employer’s are being hurt by RTW laws because it restricts them from accepting an exclusive union contract. But the only thing in today’s business environment making it desirable for a business to accept such a contract is legislative compulsion. No employer in his right mind would want to accept a closed shop because they see great advantages in dealing with today’s wonderful unions. The argument being made here is a defense of a hypothetical work relationship and it ignores the fact that today’s union’s can only arrange exclusive contracts through government force AND that the RTW laws are specifically designed to take this illegitimate power away. What makes this article stand out, is that it takes some exceptional creativity to interpret the adoption of RTW as an abrogation of employer rights. In today’s world, where businesses are crying out for unions to get out of the way, I just imagine telling Hoffa that we oppose RTW because we believe it restricts the rights of employers. I believe he would grin at us amazing suckers!