Short answer: Yes.
The question is posed by an exchange launched by Evan Soltas at Bloomberg View, and answered by Michael Wasser of the workers rights organization Jobs for Justice. Soltas has defended himself against Wasser's response, so this could go on for a while.
The discussion was inspired by the recent defeat of a United Auto Workers drive at the Chattanooga, Tenn., plant of Volkswagen, which we discuss here. The case has inspired lots of commentary about the long-term decline of industrial unions in the U.S. and the role of that trend in the increasing of income inequality. The two trends coincide, so there really is no question that the decline of workers' voice and worker rights resulting from the decline of unions has played an important role in the rising power of the shareholding and managerial class.
One hates to say of a writer as fluent as Soltas that his analysis lacks the depth that would come from experience, but Wasser is certainly correct in arguing that Soltas' argument that the U.S. is better off without unions and "unions can't be saved" reflects the limitations of textbook-learning. A few specific issues:
To think that federal labor law has had "little to do" with union decline, as Soltas puts it, is hopelessly naive. He's misled by the fact that union membership has fallen even though we have laws guaranteeing the right to collective bargaining, and by the failure to recognize how inadequately those...
[Click here to see the rest of this post]
What really caused the decline of American unions? - Workers ...
Mar 09, 2014
In that vote the union wasn't opposed by the company but by Republican political leaders across Tennessee, who threatened to destroy the plant by withdrawing public subsidies if the union won. The vote was close, 53% to ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Workers' Compensation: Kansas, The Next Target: Unions expect ...
Dec 15, 2013
The project labor agreement changes stop government entities from requiring union-level wages on jobs. Unemployment benefits were changed to allow employers to avoid paying benefits if the employee broke even minor ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
Supreme Court 2013: Court Could Cripple Unions In Major Labor ...
Nov 05, 2013
Over the next few months, the Supreme Court will hear two major cases that could prove a major setback to unions' ability to organize and collect dues -- and the conservative majority on the court is making pro-labor ...
http://workers-compensation.blogspot.com/
