The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA or Wagner Act, after the Senator who wrote it) is the cornerstone of American labor law in this country. It is the first permanet law to recognize the right of employees to organize into unions of their own choosing. It also created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) which oversees the implementation of the act, ruling whether labor and or management behavior has violated a set of "unfair practices" and holding union representation elections.
As you probably know, the union movement in this country has been very sick for a very long time. As Democrats discuss the future of their party under another 4 years of Bush, labor leaders are discussing the same thing.
I'm certainly not the first one to suggest this, but maybe the best thing to do is get rid of the NLRA.
I'm not a troll. I love the New Deal like every other good big government liberal, but I've read two articles recently that have really made me believe that it's time to think WAY outside the box.
The first is by the labor historian David Brody. Brody argues that employers have hijacked the law so that conservatives controlling the NLRB can restrict labor's freedom. Over the past 50 years he writes:
the work of interpreting labor's rights out of existence has steadily proceeded.
It's like the overtime fight last year. The Bush administration uses administrative rules to stop 7 million people from getting overtime, yet the law still remains on the books. The New Deal is becoming a shell, but labor still has to deal with the strictures the law puts on it even though it gets few of the benefits anymore.
[I might add that I just finished Liza Featherstone's new book on the class action gender discrimination suit against Wal-Mart and she suggests that Wal-Mart assumes that NLRB fines are just a paltry cost of doing business. They don't deter Wal-Mart or any other corporate giant. Since it takes years for them to make a decision anyway, most workers don't even bother complaining.]
The second article is by labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan in the Nation. He writes:
As a labor lawyer in a Blue State, I'm ready to give up. Not because Bush will repeal the Wagner Act--I almost wish he would. The act is so screwed up, management could hardly have it any better. Worried about the National Labor Relations Board? Not really. No union serious about organizing uses it anymore.
He suggests that Blue states should essentially make their own labor law. Without the NLRB to worry about, they would have a clearer path. According to a new labor group, Unite to Win:
Independent polls show that between 40 and 50 million workers would choose to have a union if they could do so without employer intimidation, pressure from their supervisors, and the threat of firing. The laws protecting worker choice were created over 70 years ago and need to be modernized for the 21st century.
We aren't going to be able to change federal law for the next 4 years so let's try leveling the playing field. Offer to repeal the NLRA and I'll bet you the Republicans will bite.
After the election, I thought to myself, "It's going to be the Sixties all over again. People will be burning their draft cards any day now." Why not make it the Thirties all over again too? Obviously, I'm not hoping for a depression, but there's a lot to be said for not having workers straight-jacketed by an overly long legal process that will take years to work if it even goes their way. They can try using the strike power instead, recognizing that a the best strike is the one that doesn't happen because management caved first.
If unions would try taking risks like this, I'd have more faith in them than I do now in the future of the Democratic Party.