Unions May Misuse Funds: In 2010, the Supreme Court decided that unions, among others, may spend unlimited amounts of union dues to dispense information supporting or opposing federal candidates of the unions’ choosing. They said such action was a First Amendment right. There are stipulations, but the fact remains, union bosses can inundate union members with literature supporting their favorite candidates, and any minority of dues-paying members have no say in it.373Union members pay into pension plans so they have money to retire. The pension funds have been in trouble for years. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a U.S. government agency, is always seeking billions in tax dollars to fill pension fund vaults because those funds are being drained for other purposes. This ongoing pursuit will not let up until the socialism train wreck either explodes in bankruptcy, or a firm resolve is made to return to the principles of freedom.374
Decline of the Unions?
With the passage of time and the growth of populations, the tables are turning against the unions. People have been blaming unions for having too much control, for stifling innovation and business development, for preventing technology from advancing or benefitting other industries and workers as did the old guilds.
Unions have a history of igniting fights over sales territory. The fighting and control has turned cities against towns, and friends against competitors. There is a lot of bad PR for the unions, and the right-to-work States are prospering from an influx of businesses fleeing the union-heavy States. This shift away from unions is nearly identical with the shift away from the guild system centuries earlier.
In 1944, union membership accounted for almost 36 percent of the U.S. work force. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics375 reported that in 1983, union membership stood at 20.1 percent of the labor force, or about 17.7 million union workers. By 2011, membership had dropped to 11.9 percent, or 14.7 million of the current number of employed Americans. That decline was spread across 33 States where union membership has been dropping since 2010.
About half of the American workers in unions live in only six States: California (2.4 million), New York (2 million), Illinois (800,000), Pennsylvania (800,000), Ohio (700,000), and New Jersey (600,000).
As government grew, so did the benefits extracted from taxpayers to support government employee unions. In 2010, union membership for people working for the government stood at 36.2 percent, while the rate for private-sector union membership dropped to 6.9 percent. The pay difference? Average pay per week for union members in 2010 was $917, and for non-union members, $717.
Slow Erosion of Liberty
The golden era of unions rose and fell at the expense of human rights. The right to compete on a fair playing ground, and to exercise unalienable rights, had fallen prey to the ever-increasing bully tactics of unions.
There is no question that labor disputes are a complex issue. On the one hand there are the needs of the desperately unemployed, those who are willing to do anything for a paycheck. On the other hand are those employers needing workers, and who take unfair advantages such as hiring illegal immigrants to work at below-market wages.
The strike, with all its connected coercion, intimidation, and violence, was the lever to steal from a property owner his right to develop his idea in the fashion that freedom allows.
To their credit, the unions did launch strikes to correct lapses in the workplace. They correctly identified abuses, safety issues, and other risks.
But such discovery didn’t require a union. Men and women are capable of noticing, all by themselves, that rats in the kitchen, lopped-off fingers in the ground beef, and more pay for men than women doing the same work, are all bad. Was union-instigated force the only alternative to correcting such problems?
Was Union Force the Only Answer?
Pro-union people stand aghast with shocked annoyance that anyone would dare question the contributions of unions to change the working environment.
What they ignore, squash, squander, and kick under the rug are all of the positives that the free market might have brought.
The free market has a way of improving everything it touches with a unique durability that expands into other corners of civilization. The question of how life might be different were unions not the driving force for such corrections in the workplace must remain unanswered for the 1700-1800s.
However, letting freedom back into the workplace portends a more satisfying solution to employment issues in the future. A 2011 study376 showed that during the period 1977 to 2008,
The unemployment rate in right-to-work States was 7.9 percent while the national average was 9.1 percent;
Right-to-work States enjoyed a 100 percent growth in employment while union-friendly States grew only 56.5 percent. The national average was 71 percent;
Real per capita income grew 62.3 percent in right-to-work States, while union-friendly States averaged 52.8 percent. The national average was 54.7 percent.
The top 14 States with the slowest income growth from 1999 to 2009 were all union-friendly States.
In 2011, a survey by CNBC found that measuring for quality of work force, 22 of America’s right-to-work States ranked in the top 25.377 A 2013 survey by CNBC showed 18 of the top 25 best States for business were right-to-work States.378Freedom in the Workplace
How different might today’s world be if companies had to actually compete for good employees. Come work here, we don’t have rats. Come work here, our machines are finger safe. Come work here, we offer a shorter work week, fewer hours, better pay, equal pay, and fantastic benefits such as insurance.
Obviously, everyone would rush to the employment office of companies offering so many positives, and ignore those that didn’t. Competing to compete is a novel idea that freedom allows.
Unions hijack that market-driven process by forcing business owners to acquiesce to their union demands. There is a lot of discussion on this subject, but our purpose here is not to resolve all of it, but simply show that unionization is what Karl Marx called for, a means to violate the rights of business owners, property owners, and tax payers. It is not the free market at work when coercion is supported by government force to violate other people’s unalienable rights to make contracts, to control property, and to exercise free choice.
* * *
363 Monthly Labor Review, May 1938, by Florence Peterson, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
364 The New York Daily Advertiser, June 6, 1835.
365 Commonwealth vs. Hunt, 45 Mass. 111 (1842), Farwell vs. Boston & Worcester RR, The Law of the Commonwealth and Chief Justice Shaw cited in Orth, John V. (2010)
366 Title 15 of the United States Code, Section 6.
367 Norris-La Guardia Act (1932).
368 See National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and the Federal Labor Relations Act of 1978.
369 National Labor Relations Board vs. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, 301 U.S. (1937).
370 United States vs. Enmons, 410 U.S. 396 (1973).
371 Carl F. Horowitz, Union Corruption: Why it Happens, How to Combat It, published by National Institute for Labor Relations Research, 1999.
372 Jarrett Skorup, No Horses, But Detroit Water Department Employs ‘Horseshoer’, Michigan Capitol Confidential, August 20, 2012.
373 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 08-205 (2010).
374 PBGC website www.pbgc.gov.
375 Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. Department of Labor, News Release, USDL-11-0063, January 21, 2011.
376 First five points attributed to Sean Higgins, Investor’s Business Daily, June 29, 2011, citing Richard Vedder, Ohio University, January 2011.
377 Washington Examiner, July 2, 2011.
378 CNBC.com, America’s Top States for Business 2013; National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, Inc., Right to Work States
Chapter 59: Revolution
ary: Religious Revivalists
There are hundreds of examples of socialism entering the rank and file of religions and religious movements. The following is just a random sample from the 1800s.
WHO: Frederick Denison Maurice
WhAT: His book, The Kingdom of Christ, 1836
WHERE: Normanstone, England
STORY: Maurice was a professor of theology at Kings College and the University of Cambridge. He was attracted to the socialist ideas of Robert Owen, and pressed those ideas forward to start a movement that later became known as Christian socialism. The foundation of his viewpoint was a dislike for competition in the marketplace. He called it unchristian.
In 1838, Maurice spelled out his version of the ideal relationship between religion and society in The Kingdom of Christ. He expressed his philosophy that politics and religion were one and the same, and that the church should be involved in both.
Maurice believed that individual rights and the pursuit of self-interest, with all of its inherent selfishness, were wrong. He rejected the economic principles of laissez faire (French: “leave it alone”), and looked to compulsory change through socialism as the best solution.
He encouraged profit-sharing as a means of creating the perfect Christian society, and added numerous tracts and writings to support Christian socialism until his death in 1872.
WHO: Adin Ballou
WhAT: Created a utopia in America, 1842
WHere: Hopedale, Massachusetts
STORY: In the early 1840s, Ballou set out to create the ideal society that would be blissfully set apart from the wicked ways of the world. With the help of his 31 followers, he purchased 600 acres in Worcester County, Massachusetts. It was supposed to be the seed of an ideal utopian-Christian community. They built churches, homes for members, and factories to make an income.
Unlike other socialist societies, members could take their original investment, or 90 percent of what they earned, if they chose to leave the society. Although they attempted to treat men and women as equals, women were usually relegated to domestic chores and men became the political leaders.
Members could own their homes but all other facilities and tools were owned in common. Hopedale was built on equality more than Christianity, although basic Christian tenets were emphasized.
Their constitution listed important commitments made by the members: Avoid all evils mentioned in the Bible, never hold political office or have any dealings with the rest of the country, never file lawsuits, or join a posse, or serve in the military, or vote, or gamble, or drink, or be unchaste.
After 14 years, the people had tired of working for each other and wanted to build their own profit-making businesses. As a result, many moved out. When the commune finally used up all of its members’ money, it went bankrupt.379 Communal living with Christian hopes and desires couldn’t satisfactorily replace the natural laws of economics and self interest. Hopedale collapsed in 1856.
WHO: Sidney Rigdon and “the disciples”
WhAT: Socialism in the early Mormon Church, 1831
WHERe: Kirtland, Ohio
STORY: When the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) was founded in 1830, one of its early converts was a man named Sidney Rigdon. He was a successful Baptist minister who formed his own communal religion based on the ideas of Robert Owen. When the Mormon missionaries found Rigdon, he was already living with “all things in common,” and had about 50 followers in a commune he called his “family.”380 Rigdon and his whole congregation converted to Mormonism.
Rigdon’s “communal family” lifestyle didn’t sit well with Mormon teachings of self-sufficiency and independence. The founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, saw “no private property” as an unworkable flaw in Rigdon’s organization. He had them abandon it, calling attempts at having all things in common “dreadful.”
The two men became good friends, but the ideas of communalism continued to spread among other members in the new church.
Glutting Themselves on the Labors of Others
In 1831, Joseph Smith and Rigdon returned to church headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio, and found “The disciples had all things in common and were going to destruction very fast ... they considered from reading the scripture that what belongs to one brother, belonged to any of the brethren, therefore they would take each other’s clothes and other property and use it without leave, which brought on confusion and disappointments, for they did not understand the scripture.”381 “There were some of the disciples who were flattered into the Church because they thought that all things were to be common, therefore they thought to glut themselves upon the labors of others”382
Joseph Smith later cautioned the saints that communalist societies of any sort don’t work: “We further suggest ... that there be no organization of large bodies upon common stock principles, in property, or of large companies of firms, until the Lord shall signify it in a proper manner, as it opens such a dreadful field for the avaricious, the indolent, and the corrupt-hearted to prey upon the innocent and virtuous, and honest.”383
Smith eventually set up his own organization for funding the Church’s activities. He called it the United Order where members retained private ownership of their property but were asked to voluntarily put it to work in behalf of the Church.
Retaining property ownership in their common religious labors was a clever process that actually worked and provided the needed support that saved the Church from financial collapse.
After the Mormons settled in the Rocky Mountains in 1847, Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, deployed the United Order to about 200 start-up communities. The members gave it a good try beginning in 1855—but this time they made the serious error of trying to have “all things in common,” and minimal private property ownership. The usual problems crept in with the industrious doing more work than the feeble or lazy, so that most of the collectives failed by 1858. Community leaders responded by turning to more traditional and successful means (i.e., free market) to sustain themselves, and after that, the whole region started prospering.
WHO: Pope Leo XIII
WhAT: Pro-union encyclical issued May 15, 1891
WHERE: Europe and the world
STORY: In response to what the Catholic Church called “The misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class” from the industrial revolution, the pope issued an open letter on labor, unions, wages, and working conditions. It was called On the Conditions of Labor, or Rerum Novarum.384
Promoted Minimum Wage: “Let the working man and the employer make free agreements,” the letter stated, “and in particular let them agree freely as to the wages; nevertheless, there underlies a dictate of natural justice more imperious and ancient than any bargain between man and man, namely, that wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner.”
Promoted State Force: “...It is advisable that recourse be had to societies or boards such as we shall mention presently, or to some other mode of safeguarding the interests of the wage-earners; the State being appealed to, should circumstances require, for its sanction and protection.”
Promoted Unions: “History attests what excellent results were brought about by the artificers’ guilds of olden times. They were the means of affording not only many advantages to the workmen, but in no small degree of promoting the advancement of art ... Such unions should be suited to the requirements of this our age. ...”
Contradicting Principles: The letter further called for life to be made rosy for the worker but neglected to consider the property rights of the factory owner. Pope Leo XIII viewed the owners as profit-hungry and willing to abuse workers where possible:
“... If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford him no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice.”<
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As a solution to the plight of the working class, the letter called for the creation of trade unions, the power of collective bargaining, and the right to a “living wage.”
Interfering With Free Markets: The pope’s letter appears to view competition with disdain, and called for imposing an orderly process in the market:
“The great mistake made in regard to the matter now under consideration is to take up with the notion that class is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth.”
Class conflict was a favorite theme of Marx. He, too, called for labor and capital to work together instead of against each other.
Recognized Evils of Socialism: On the positive side, the letter pointed out that redistribution of wealth doesn’t help:
“To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.”
Socialism at Work
As with all those who preceded them, the socialists’ “new” concepts continue to be flawed failures from the start. The oft-heralded discoverers of socialism’s tired ideas were the revolutionary philosophers and economists—otherwise brilliant thinkers who exhausted their life pursuits to prove that the unworkable works. Of these labors it may be said: Socialism will continue to spread misery until morale improves.
The Naked Socialist Page 32