Labor Law & the Organized Union
By Joseph Stutzman

Labor laws were enacted in order to equalize the relationship and the bargaining power between employers and their employees. One thing that has not ever changed is the employer's feeling of empowerment that can lead to mistreatment and even persecution of one or a group of employees. The labor laws allow employees the right to unionize and also allow both the employer and employees to strike, picket, lockout and seek relief within the court system in order to voice their demands and to have them fulfilled.

When trade unions and labor unions first started forming, it was due to the belief that employees were almost slaves to their employers, working long, hard hours in often unsafe working conditions and for wages hardly high enough to live on. Workers started banding together in order to have more strength when bargaining with their employers. Union leaders were soon negotiating labor contracts, wages, promotion guidelines and benefits. They encouraged workers in the unions to organize and to strike for safer working conditions and for putting in place rules for hiring and firing. The agreements negotiated by the unions were binding on employers, member employees and even, in some cases, on non-member workers.

All of these measures were needed by the employees in the early 1900s and unions were considered a necessary part of the worker's power over his or her situation in life. But, unions still survive today and their workers are some of the highest paid in the nation, in many cases making more than many white collar jobs. Management is prohibited from being part of a union and workers who do not pay union dues are not given the same protections that a dues-paying member is.

The question is, "have we outgrown labor unions?" Are labor unions partly to blame for the outsourcing to overseas of American jobs? I personally think so. Employers have been backed into a corner by the labor unions. The constant push for higher benefits, higher pay and more worker rights have, in some cases, crippled companies to the point that in order to survive they have no choice but to employ overseas workers. The workers overseas work for far less money, the working conditions created by the U.S. companies are much better than the local conditions and now THEY are the most highly paid in THEIR country.

You have to wonder if the U.S. hasn't almost priced itself out of existence. Just look at the state of the economy. We would all like to always purchase U.S. made products, but where labor unions have taken hold, Americans often cannot afford American goods. But, like the incumbents in Congress, it will take a very large anti-union movement to break the hold that the unions have on the nation's economy, if it can be broken at all. So, maybe the union leadership needs to undergo change, just as Congress faces in the next two elections. The American people will prove their strength in the next two years as more and more incumbents are voted out of their positions of power.

Unions, no more than Congress, should be eliminated completely, but like Congress, union leadership has become accustomed to their powerful positions, which may, in hindsight, have created a monster that must undergo a transformation in order to save our great nation.

Along with writing, Joseph enjoys working in his gardens. Garden Harvest Supply is one of his favorite garden sites which offer annual plants and neptune's harvest fertilizer to make them bloom abundantly.

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