Conscience of a Conservative Page 4
But the protest still holds: though the Landrum-Griffin Bill was an improvement over the Kennedy measure, Congress has still to come to grips with the real evil in the Labor field. Graft and corruption are symptoms of the illness that besets the labor movement, not the cause of it. The cause is the enormous economic and political power now concentrated in the hands of union leaders.
Such power hurts the nation's economy by forcing on employers contract terms that encourage inefficiency, lower production and high prices—all of which result in a lower standard of living for the American people.
It corrupts the nation's political life by exerting undue influence on the selection of public officials.
It gravely compromises the freedom of millions of individual workers who are able to register a dissent against the practice of union leaders only at the risk of losing their jobs.
All of us have heard the charge that to thus criticize the power of Big Labor is to be anti-labor and anti-union. This is an argument that serves the interest of union leaders, but it does not usually fit the facts, and it certainly does not do justice to my views. I believe that unionism, kept within its proper and natural bounds, accomplishes a positive good for the country. Unions can be an instrument for achieving economic justice for the working man. Moreover, they are an alternative to, and thus discourage State Socialism. Most important of all, they are an expression of freedom. Trade unions, properly conceived, are an expression of man's inalienable right to associate with other men for the achievement of legitimate objectives.
The natural function of a trade union and the one for which it was historically conceived is to represent those employees who want collective representation in bargaining with their employers over terms of employment. But note that this function is perverted the moment a union claims the right to represent employees who do not want representation, or conducts activities that have nothing to do with terms of employment (e.g. political activities), or tries to deal with an industry as a whole instead of with individual employers.
As America turned increasingly, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, from an agricultural nation into an industrial one, and as the size of business enterprises expanded, individual wage earners found themselves at a distinct disadvantage in dealing with their employers over terms of employment. The economic power of the large enterprises, as compared with that of the individual employee, was such that wages and conditions of employment were pretty much what the employer decided they would be. Under these conditions, as a means of increasing their economic power, many employees chose to band together and create a common agent for negotiating with their employers.
As time went on, we found that the working man's right to bargain through a collective agent needed legal protection; accordingly Congress enacted laws—notably certain provisions of the Clayton Act, the Norris LaGuardia Act and the Wagner Act—to make sure that employees would be able to bargain collectively.
This is not the place to examine those laws in detail. It is clear, however, that they have over-accomplished their purpose. Thanks to some unwise provisions and to the absence of others that should have been included, the delicate balance of power we sought to achieve between labor and management has shifted, in avalanche proportions, to labor's advantage. Or, more correctly to the advantage of union leaders. This mammoth concentration of power in the hands of a few men is, I repeat, a grave threat to the nation's economic stability, and to the nation's political processes. More important, it has taken from the individual wage earner a large portion of his freedom.
The time has come, not to abolish unions or deprive them of deserved gains; but to redress the balance—to restore unions to their proper role in a free society.
We have seen that unions perform their natural function when three conditions are observed: association with the union is voluntary; the union confines its activities to collective bargaining; the bargaining is conducted with the employer of the workers concerned. Let us briefly treat with each of these conditions, noting the extent to which they are violated today, and the remedial action we are called upon to take.
Freedom of Association. Here the argument is so plain that I wonder why elaboration is necessary. What could be more fundamental than the freedom to associate with other men, or not to associate, as each man's conscience and reason dictates? Yet compulsory unionism is the rule rather than the exception today in the ranks of organized labor. Millions of laboring men are required to join the union that is the recognized bargaining agent at the place they work. Union shop agreements deny to these laboring men the right to decide for themselves what union they will join, or indeed, whether they will join at all. The exercise of freedom for many of these citizens, means the loss of their jobs.
Here is the kind of thing that can happen as the result of compulsory unionism. X, a family man in Pennsylvania had been a union member in good standing for over twenty years. When the United Electrical Workers became the recognized bargaining agent at his plant, he refused to join on the grounds the UEW was Communist dominated—a judgment that had been made by the CIO itself when it expelled the UEW in 1950. The result, since his employer had a union shop agreement with the UEW, was that X lost his job.
The remedy here is to give freedom of association legal protection. And that is why I strongly favor enactment of State right-to-work laws which forbid contracts that make union membership a condition of employment. These laws are aimed at removing a great blight on the contemporary American scene, and I am at a loss to understand why so many people who so often profess concern for "civil rights" and "civil liberties" are vehemently opposed to them. Freedom of association is one of the natural rights of man. Clearly, therefore, it should also be a "civil" right. Right-to-work laws derive from the natural law: they are simply an attempt to give freedom of association the added protection of civil law.
I am well aware of the "free loader" argument, so often advanced by union leaders in defense of compulsory unionism. The contention is that a man ought not to enjoy the benefits of an organization's activities unless he contributes his fair share of their cost. I am unaware, however, of any other organization or institution that seeks to enforce this theory by compulsion. The Red Cross benefits all of us, directly or indirectly, but no one suggests that Red Cross donations be compulsory. It is one thing to say that a man should contribute to an association that is purportedly acting in his interest; it is quite another thing to say that he must do so. I believe that a man ought to join a union if it is a good union that is serving the interests of its members. I believe, moreover, that most men will give support to a union provided it is deserving of that support. There will always be some men, of course, who will try to sponge off others; but let us not express our contempt for some men by denying freedom of choice to all men.
The union leaders' further argument that right to work legislation is a "union-busting" device is simply not borne out by the facts. A recent survey disclosed that in all of the nineteen States which have enacted right-to-work laws, union membership increased after the right-to-work laws were passed. It is also well to remember that the union movement throughout the world has prospered when it has been put on a voluntary basis. Contrary to popular belief, compulsory unionism is not typical of the labor movement in the free world. It prevails in the United States and England, but in the other countries of Western Europe and in Australia, union membership is generally on a voluntary basis. Indeed the greatest percentage of unionized workers are found in countries that prohibit compulsion by law. The unions in those countries operate on the principle that a union is stronger and better if its members give their adherence of their own free will.
Here, it seems to me, is the sensible way to combat graft and corruption in the labor movement. As long as union leaders can force workers to join their organization, they have no incentive to act responsibly. But if workers could choose to belong or not to belong depending on how the union performed, the pressure to stamp out malpr
actice would become irresistible. If unions had to earn the adherence of their members, the result would be not only more freedom for the working man, but much less dishonesty and high handedness in the management of the union affairs.
Political Freedom. One way we exercise political freedom is to vote for the candidate of our choice. Another way is to use our money to try to persuade other voters to make a similar choice—that is, to contribute to our candidate's campaign. If either of these freedoms is violated, the consequences are very grave not only for the individual voter and contributor, but for the society whose free political processes depend on a wide distribution of political power.
It is in the second of these areas, that of political contributions, that labor unions seriously compromise American freedom. They do this by spending the money of union members without prior consultation for purposes the individual members may or may not approve of, purposes that are decided upon by a relatively small number of union leaders. Probably the greatest spender in the labor movement is the powerful AFL/CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE) which is supported in its "educational" work entirely by union general funds.
It is impossible to say just how much unions spend on political campaigns; certainly one can't tell from the amounts officially reported, which invariably present a grossly distorted picture. In 1956, for example, Labor officially acknowledged expenditures of $941,271. According to that official report, $79,939 of the total was spent in the State of Michigan. However, a Senate investigating committee obtained evidence that in that year each of Michigan's 700,000 union members had been assessed $1.20 as a contribution to a "citizenship fund," and that this money was made available for political activities. This suggests that labor spent, from that one source alone, almost a million dollars in Michigan instead of $79,000. By projecting the difference on a nation-wide scale we get a more realistic idea of the size of Labor's political contributions.
Union political activity is not confined, of course, to direct financial contributions. In fact, this is one of its smallest endeavors. Unions provide manpower for election day chores—for making phone calls, driving cars, manning the polls and so on. Often the union members who perform these chores are reimbursed for their time-off out of union funds. Unions also sponsor radio and television programs and distribute a huge volume of printed material designed to support the candidate of the union's choice. In short, they perform all the functions of a regular party organization.
Now the evil here is twofold. For one thing, the union's decision whether to support candidate X or candidate Y—whether to help the Republican Party or the Democratic Party—is not reached by a poll of the union membership. It is made by a handful of top union officers. These few men are thus able to wield tremendous political power in virtue of their ability to spend other people's money. No one else in America is so privileged.
The other evil is more serious. Individual union members are denied the right to decide for themselves how to spend their money. Certainly a moral issue is at stake here. Is it morally permissible to take the money of a Republican union member, for example, and spend it on behalf of a Democrat? The travesty is deeper, of course, when the money takes the form of compulsory union dues. Under union shop conditions, the only way an individual can avoid contributing to the political campaign of a candidate whom he may not approve is to give up his job.
The passage of right-to-work laws will help the situation. But putting unionism on a voluntary basis is only part of the answer. For even though a man can leave or refuse to join a union that spends money for purposes that he does not approve, there may be other factors that would dissuade him from doing so. In many communities strong economic and social pressures are exerted on behalf of joining a union—quite aside from the threat of loss of employment. As a result, a man may decide to join a union notwithstanding his disapproval of its political activities. And the question remains: Should that man's union dues be used for political purposes? The answer is clearly, no. Unions exist, presumably to confer economic advantages on their members, not to perform political services for them. Unions should therefore be forbidden to engage in any kind of political activity. I believe that the Federal Corrupt Practices Act does forbid such activity. That legislation has been circumvented by the "education" approach and other devices; and Congress and the courts, in effect, have looked the other way. The only remedy, it appears is new legislation.
In order to achieve the widest possible distribution of political power, financial contributions to political campaigns should be made by individuals and individuals alone. I see no reason for labor unions—or corporations—to participate in politics. Both were created for economic purposes and their activities should be restricted accordingly.
Economic Freedom. Americans have been much disturbed in recent years by the apparent power of Big Labor to impose its will on the nation's economic life whenever the impulse strikes. The recent steel controversy, and the terms of its settlement, are the latest illustration of Labor's ability to get its way notwithstanding the cost to the rest of society. When the strike began, neutral observers—including government economists normally friendly to the unions—agreed that the Steel Workers' wage demands were exorbitant and would inevitably cause further inflation; and that the steel companies were quite right in insisting that certain "work rules" promoted inefficiency and retarded production. Nevertheless, the steel companies were forced to accept a settlement that postponed indefinitely revision of work rules and granted a large portion of the union's wage demands.
The reason the union won is quite simple: it posed to the country the choice of tolerating stoppages in steel production that would imperil national security, or of consenting to an abandonment of the collective bargaining process. Since neither the steel companies nor the country at large wanted to resort to compulsory arbitration, the alternative was to give the unions what they asked. In this situation, the only power superior to union power was government power, and the government chose to yield.
One way to check the unions' power is for the government to dictate, through compulsory arbitration, the terms of employment throughout an entire industry. I am opposed to this course because it simply transfers economic power from the unions to the government, and encourages State Socialism. The other way is to disperse union power and thus extend freedom in labor-management relations.
Eighty years ago the nation was faced with a comparable concentration of economic power. Large corporations, by gaining monopoly control over entire industries, had nullified the laws of competition that are conducive to freedom. We responded to that challenge by outlawing monopolies through the Sherman Act and other anti-trust legislation. These laws, however, have never been applied to labor unions. And I am at a loss to understand why. If it is wrong for a single corporation to dictate prices throughout an entire industry, it is also wrong for a single union—or, as is the actual case, a small number of union leaders—to dictate wages and terms of employment throughout an entire industry.
The evil to be eliminated is the power of unions to enforce industry-wide bargaining. Employees have a right, as we have seen, to select a common agent for bargaining with their employer but they do not have a right to select a national agent to bargain with all employers in the industry. If a union has the power to enforce uniform conditions of employment throughout the nation, its power is comparable to that of a Socialist government.
Employers are forbidden to act collusively for sound reasons. The same reasons apply to unions. Industrywide price-fixing causes economic dislocations? So does industry-wide wage-fixing. A wage that is appropriate in one part of the country may not be in another area where economic conditions are very different. Corporate monopolies impair the operation of the free market, and thus injure the consuming public. So do union monopolies. When the United Automobile Workers demand a wage increase from the auto industry, a single monolith is pitted against a number of separate, competing companies. The contest is an unequal
one, for the union is able to play off one company against another. The result is that individual companies are unable to resist excessive wage demands and must, in turn, raise their prices. The consumer ultimately suffers for he pays prices that are fixed not by free market competition—the law of supply and demand—but by the arbitrary decision of national union leaders. Far better if the employees of Ford were required to deal with Ford, and those of Chrysler with Chrysler and so on. The collective bargaining process will work for the common good in all industries if it is confined to the employers and employees directly concerned.
Let us henceforth make war on all monopolies—whether corporate or union. The enemy of freedom is unrestrained power, and the champions of freedom will fight against the concentration of power wherever they find it.
C H A P T E R S E V E N
Taxes and Spending
WE ALL have heard much
throughout our lifetimes, and seen little happen, on the subject of high taxes. Where is the politician who has not promised his constituents a fight to the death for lower taxes—and who has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that make tax cuts impossible? There are some the shoe does not fit, but I am afraid not many. Talk of tax reduction has thus come to have a hollow ring. The people listen, but do not believe. And worse: as the public grows more and more cynical, the politician feels less and less compelled to take his promises seriously.
I suspect that this vicious circle of cynicism and failure to perform is primarily the result of the Liberals' success in reading out of the discussion the moral principles with which the subject of taxation is so intimately connected. We have been led to look upon taxation as merely a problem of public financing: How much money does the government need? We have been led to discount, and often to forget altogether, the bearing of taxation on the problem of individual freedom. We have been persuaded that the government has an unlimited claim on the wealth of the people, and that the only pertinent question is what portion of its claim the government should exercise. The American taxpayer, I think, has lost confidence in his claim to his money. He has been handicapped in resisting high taxes by the feeling that he is, in the nature of things, obliged to accommodate whatever need for his wealth government chooses to assert.