NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE A s Labor Day weekend is once again upon us, we will inevitably see union partisans use the day to steal the spotlight from America’s hardworking men and women and plead for greater union-boss legal powers.
Their pleas should be ignored: Big Labor officials already wield numerous coercive powers enjoyed by no other private individuals or organizations. Still, union officials regularly attempt new power grabs.
Consider the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Glacier Northwest v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters. In the case, Teamsters lawyers argued that, when unions commit deliberate property damage as part of a strike, the union should be shielded from liability.
While the Supreme Court ruled 8–1 against granting union bosses a legal exemption from state lawsuits for such property damage, it isn’t hard to see why the Teamsters were able to persuade the Washington state supreme court to side with them, or why they thought they might be able to slip a new union-only loophole past the high court. All around the country, Big Labor plays according to a legal rulebook that is perpetually stacked in its favor.
While Glacier Northwest was a positive step, many pro-union legal carve-outs remain firmly ingrained in American law. For example, the 1973 U.S. v. Enmons Supreme Court decision still protects from federal prosecution those union bosses who resort to extortionate violence, if their goal is “to achieve legitimate union objectives.”
The Enmons standard has led to some outrageous results: In 2014, Boston-area Teamsters agents who faced a lawsuit for slashing the tires of Top Chef TV-crew vehicles and for telling show host Padma Lakshmi they would “bash that pretty face in” received a “not guilty” verdict. Why? Teamsters militants perpetrated such violence and intimidation in order to secure jobs for their members on the show, which by Enmons’ lights is a “legitimate union objective.” Such incidents are not isolated; conservative estimates suggest that more than 10,000 incidents of union-sanctioned violence have taken place since 1975.
To close the Enmons loophole, Congress should pass the Freedom from Union Violence Act. The law, which was just introduced as H.R. 5314 by Representative Scott Perry (R., Pa.), would ensure that the anti-extortion Hobbs Act again applies to union-instigated extortionate violence the same way that it applies to all other violent acts meant to obstruct interstate commerce.
But plugging the Enmons extortionate-violence loophole would be only a start to rolling back union officials’ hefty legal privileges. Big Labor’s biggest privilege is something that union bosses can rely on in virtually any jurisdiction they find themselves in.
Union monopoly bargaining power, which allows a union to force its “representation” on all employees in a workplace, even on those who oppose the union, grants union bosses the authority to violate basic principles of freedom of association any time they gain power in a workplace.
Even convicted criminals can choose their own legal representatives, yet union officials can deny workers the same choice in employment matters. This isn’t some abstract legal issue. Workers for decades have been compelled by law to deal with union bosses who denigrate their religion, race, and political beliefs.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the 23 states across the country that lack right-to-work protections let union bosses use monopoly bargaining as a guise to extract forced dues payments from workers. The result is not only that workers are forced to subsidize union speech they oppose, but also that union bosses become totally unaccountable to those they claim to “represent,” because no matter how bad a job they do, workers must pay up or be fired.
Labor Day weekend should be about celebrating workers and not about celebrating union bosses who coerce workers and get away with ugly threats and violence. The solution is neither pro-union nor anti-union: Just make Big Labor play by the same rules as everyone else.