Uncurbed Union Power

February 23, 1959

No one concerned for the protection of the public interest against the almost unlimited power of labor bosses can become enthusiastic about either the Kennedy- Ervin or Administration bills now before Congress.

Both bills, it is true, purport to protect union members against corrupt or unscrupulous union bosses. But both mistake the means. Congress, having by the enactment of special privileges and immunities created the Frankenstein monster of lawless union power, now seeks by still more government intervention to curb a few of the abuses of this power. Both bills carry elaborate provisions requiring financial statements from unions, and opposing bribery and corruption. There are already enough laws against robbery, embezzlement, and misappropriation of funds. It is merely necessary to enforce them. The real evils are compulsory membership in unions and exclusive bargaining powers. These neither bill dares to touch.

Both bills, on the contrary, contain provisions which would merely increase the power of unions and of union bosses. The Kennedy-Ervin bill would extend union dominion over many supervisors. Both bills would allow replaced strikers to vote in representation elections. This would permit former employees to choose “representatives” for present employees. It would tend to keep former union bosses in power and put pressure on the employer to fire replacements. The real reason some unions acquiesce in the Kennedy-Ervin “reforms” is that they want such provisions and accept the “reforms” as innocuous or meaningless. Both bills place still more discretionary power in the hands of the National Labor Relations Board, which has flagrantly misused the discretionary powers it already has.

COERCIVE PICKETING

The Administration bill amends the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act against secondary boycotts; but instead of making those provisions clearer and stronger, it virtually authorizes some of the worst forms of secondary boycotts.

The Administration bill contains at least one good provision, the only trouble being that it does not go nearly far enough. This is the provision to outlaw “stranger” or “black-mail” picketing—i.e., picketing by people who are neither employees of the employer picketed nor representatives of those employees. This kind of picketing can ruin a small-businessman. It has become a weapon of extortion and shakedowns.

But a recital of the few virtues of the Administration bill, and the even fewer virtues of the Kennedy-Ervin bill, only serves to emphasize the extent to which both fall short of the reforms that are desperately needed. Why should reform be confined, for example, only to “stranger” or “extortion” picketing? Should mass picketing be tolerated, even for so-called “legitimate” purposes?

FOR REAL REFORMS

Even Senator Kennedy said during the Kohler hearings: “It does not seem [that] there is any defense of mass picketing.” And he refused to concede that there is “any justification for a minority or even a majority to place themselves in such a position that others cannot do what they desire to do.” But this recognition of reality did not get into the Senator’s bill. Surely all mass picketing, as well as all picketing that has an intimidatory effect, should be prohibited.

The two labor bills now before Congress merely serve to deflect public attention away from the real evils of uncurbed union power. They seem to be drafted mainly on the assumption that labor bosses can do no wrong except to union members. The plight of nonunion workers, employers, and the consuming public is largely ignored. The central evils of legalized violence and monopolistic compulsion are left untouched.

Real steps to reform would be amendment of the Taft-Hartley Act to remove the exclusive bargaining powers granted to unions, and to prohibit all devices that tie employment to union membership. Still another would be complete repeal of the Norris-LaGuardia Act. As Prof. Sylvester Petro puts it: “There is no excuse for a law which denies injunctive relief to persons suffering irreparable injury from clearly and plainly unlawful conduct.”