Opinion of the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley)

[TNF]

Probably the single worst piece of legislation passed in the post-World War II period.

[TNF]

HA. Regardless of what you think of unions, banning closed shops/right to work laws are a violation of freedom of association.

Uh, what? So you're saying that making a requirement to work somewhere be that someone must associate with a union promotes freedom of association? There is no freedom there. It leverages ones need to earn an income against union interests.

I always find it funny that libertarians have a massive blindspot on this issue. You believe in the freedom of contract, yes? Why is it that employers, having entered into a contract with a labor union that says that they will only hire and maintain employment for union laborers, should not be allowed to require employees to do so? Do you support the right of a contract or not?

Beyond that, there's also the simple fact that, if you don't want to work somewhere where you have to pay union dues, there are plenty of non-union jobs for you to choose from. 94% of the private sector workforce is non-union. If you really, really want to be a slave with no rights at work, that can be fired arbitrarily and made to work long hours for next to nothing badly enough, there are plenty of places where you can do so.

I've worked union and non-union jobs, and literally no one with a brain prefers the latter over the former. The union dues that you pay are miniscule compared to the job security, benefits, and higher wages that come with being a union member. There's a reason why a majority of Americans want a union at work, after all. The only reason they don't have one, in most cases, is because signing a union card in most places gets you fired and your employer gets away with it, even though firing someone for talking about or joining a union is against the law.

Of course this issue is also muddled by the fact that the majority of our libertarian teenagers have never held and probably will never hold a real job, preferring instead to spend their waking hours arguing about how cat-calling is free speech and that Lincoln was a Marxist dictator who confiscated property, interchangeable of course with their paranoid rants about the central bankers (read: Jews) who control the economy and make "real capitalism" (which doesn't work anyway, but libertarians have no conception of history) impossible. Try working in a non-union shop and then get back to me on how great it is not to pay union dues while you're making $7.25 an hour working two jobs in a vain attempt to pay rent thanks to the gentrifying parasites moving into your neighborhood.

[TNF]

I'd have filibustered it, if that weren't clear enough.

[TNF]

FA, because the more you beat up on unions, the greater the chances for a proletariat revolution becomes. Don't you just see it brewing out there?!

#DeadPeople4President2016

You know TNF has thoroughly trashed Taft-Hartley in this thread, right?

Yes, I've noticed an odd cognitive dissonance. One minute they're talking about how all right-wing legislation is horrible and should be stopped, the next they're talking about how they want right-wing policy implemented rather than settle for "meager capitalistic reforms" such as the New Deal and Great Society that merely stifle the growing revolution.

Could you please show me an example of where I've ever said anything to the extent that you suggest here? I've never been against reforms if they are actual reforms. My comments on the New Deal and the Great Society have largely been to say that they have not gone far enough, not that they were not great advances on the part of the working class. I have also never claimed that either of those things were the result of enlightened liberal politicians, because they weren't. They were a response to organized and militant action in the streets, be it the CIO in the 1930s or the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s.

I have seen leftists musing about voting for ultra-neoliberal candidates that would wreack havoc on existing welfare systems and allow the impetus for a true revolution. Not sure about TNF though.

And yes, HA, etc. I wonder why no Democratic administration has even floated the idea of repealing it since the 60's?

Lyndon Johnson brought repeal up for a vote in 1966. He didn't give the Senate the 'Johnson treatment', and pretty much ignored the whole debate, allowing it to go down in defeat when conservative Democrats and Republicans filibustered it. Jimmy Carter promised a vote on repealing it in 1977, but didn't actually twist any arms to get it passed or brought to the floor, focusing more time on getting the Panama Canal Treaty through. The result was that a contingent of pro-business proto-New Democrats joined with the usual offenders to kill repeal in the House.

Bill Clinton never campaigned on it, but he did promise to support a ban on the use of scabs during a strike. That never came to a vote because Clinton was too busy ramming the anti-labor NAFTA through Congress. Obama of course promised card check, but that also never got to a vote because he had to sell his anti-labor healthcare bill.