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By Paul M. Weyrich
March 27, 2006
Over the past half-century, labor union
presence in American life has declined greatly. In the 1940s
only one union, John L. Lewis’s United Mine Workers of
America, could and did hold hostage the whole country. Today
only some 12% of American workers are union members.
Most conservatives see this as a good thing,
and in some ways it is. But as I have argued in this series
of columns on the next conservatism, conservatives should
not be against American workers. Most of the people who work
in manufacturing are cultural conservatives.
Moreover, the kind of country we desire
only can exist if average people have jobs which pay a family
wage, enough that the husband can give his family a middle-class
standard of living on one paycheck so his wife can stay home
with the children. That usually requires a job in industry,
in a factory that manufactures. The free-trade policies which
have shipped so many manufacturing jobs overseas also have
exported many Americans’ way of life.
From this perspective, I want to suggest
the next conservatism take a somewhat different position on
labor, one that reflects today’s situation, not yesterday’s.
We should be pro-labor, in the sense of pro-worker, not of
course pro-union leadership. We should stand up for American
private-sector workers and their most vital interest, manufacturing
jobs that pay a middle-class wage.
Further, we should be willing to work with
some unions, unions that actually stand for their members’
economic interests. We have a political opportunity here.
The leadership of most of the big unions could care less about
American workers. They use their compulsory dues to support
all kinds of radical, Politically Correct causes that most
of their members oppose. But on issues that affect their members’
jobs, like free trade, they go along with the Washington Establishment.
They are completely out of touch with their base.
As in other aspects of the next conservatism,
bigness is an issue here. In my view, we should favor smaller
unions that are still in touch with their members and represent
their actual economic interests. Again, we should be willing
to work with those unions.
How do we get there, given that the big
unions dominate? In my view, the next conservatism should
include a plan for “trust-busting unions,” to go
after the big unions that sell out their members. Specifics
of such union trust-busting could include:
Enforcing regulations that are already
on the books to require much more transparency in union expenditures.
If the big unions’ members could see the kinds of radical
causes to which their money goes, they would demand changes
or form new unions.
Inform union members of the Beck decision,
which ruled that union members were not obligated to pay dues
that are used for causes unrelated to workers’ interests.
Eliminate all requirements for compulsory
unionism, so unions actually represent workers if they expect
workers to join them.
All of this goes only for unions that represent
workers in private industries. Public sector workers’
unions are another matter. Not only are many of those union
leaders deeply into the cultural Marxism of Political Correctness,
so in some cases are their members. In their case, we need
to continue to be wary. They can and do still hold the country
hostage, or at least parts of it, as we saw in the recent,
illegal New York City transit workers’ strike. We need
to make it clear that public employees have no right to strike.
After all, their wages are paid by our taxes. When they strike
they are biting the hand that feeds them.
In sum, I am suggesting the next conservatism
see labor and unions as differentiated rather than as all
the same. Labor, in the form of unions that represent workers’
real economic interests like good manufacturing jobs, should
not be seen as an opponent. On the contrary, it is a potential
ally, at least on some issues. The leadership of the big unions,
detached as it is from member interests and devoted to radical
politics, remains an opponent, as do many public sector unions.
There, some trust-busting is in order.
As the next conservatism should favor small
scale in business and in agriculture it should favor small
scale in unions as well. Small scale means local control,
and real life is local.
Paul M. Weyrich
is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
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