NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE {T} he United Auto Workers strike against the Big Three automakers is over, but the Republican Party’s flirtation with labor unions is just beginning.
GOP leaders made this clear throughout the six-week strike, which ended on October 30. In September, during the strike’s early days, Donald Trump gave a speech to UAW members in which he asked their union to endorse him. Other Republicans saw autoworkers’ frustration with electric vehicles as a chance to win over labor unions and their millions of voters. And going back further, some prominent Republicans in Congress — along with powerful right-of-center groups — came out in full support of union attempts to organize workplaces.
What have these Republicans hoped to accomplish? Since Donald Trump’s election in 2016, a greater share of union members have voted for the GOP. Many party leaders seem to want to continue this trend, hoping that labor unions and their members will ultimately become reliably Republican. But political expediency is no substitute for principle. Instead of trying to woo the unions, Republicans should focus on empowering union members and workers.
There’s a profound difference between the interests of labor unions and those of the workers they represent. For at least the past 50 years, unions have focused on restricting worker freedom while cultivating a hostile relationship between workers and job creators. The results have been bitter strikes, one-size-fits-all contracts that stifle workers’ potential, and unreasonable wage-and-benefit demands that either drive companies out of business or encourage them to offshore jobs. While unions often appear to help workers in the short run, they’ve left workers high and dry over the long haul, which helps explain why the percentage of workers who are union members hit an all-time low in 2022.
The UAW strike is a case in point. Based on the union’s newly struck deals, GM, Ford, and Stellantis are set to have labor costs that will be 60 to 100 percent higher than they are at Tesla and foreign companies. That’s unsustainable, putting the Big Three on track for painful layoffs and cutbacks in the near future.
Republicans have long recognized that workers are more important than unions. The GOP believes in workplace freedom and individual initiative, which create jobs, lift wages, and enrich all of society. That’s why generations of Republicans have pushed for policies like state right-to-work laws, which give workers the freedom to opt out of union membership. States with such laws have seen jobs, incomes, and populations grow faster. Putting workers ahead of unions has even led to more manufacturing jobs.
But this progress will surely be at risk if the GOP starts catering to labor unions. While some Republicans may think they can change them, it’s far more likely that labor unions would change Republicans.
Unions are interest groups, and interest groups are laser-focused on maintaining their power and perks. Republicans would have to buy them off with handouts, bailouts for struggling union companies, tariffs for unionized industries that don’t like foreign competition, and restrictions on workplace freedom and flexibility. We saw hints of these policies during the Trump administration. The next Republican president should avoid going farther down this dangerous road.
No one stands to suffer more than workers. Given more powerful unions, they’d see fewer jobs, lower wages, higher prices, and less freedom to transform the world through fulfilling work and creativity. The opposite outcome — a new era of job creation and wage growth — would require the GOP to get government out of the way and give workers more room to apply their skills and innovate. This is the road of less red tape, not more; lower taxes, not higher ones; and more workplace freedom, not more top-down control.
Republicans who seek the “union vote” or push for union endorsements are on a fool’s errand. What may seem like a political winner would inevitably be a loss for workers. The GOP’s best bet for winning at the ballot box is to usher in widespread opportunity and shared prosperity. That won’t happen by standing with the likes of United Auto Workers but with the workers themselves.