Although the Clinton administration’s interim report on the state of America’s labor-management relations is surprisingly balanced, it raises serious questions about the future of government regulation of the workplace.
As a recent, former member of the National Labor Relations Board, I can attest that while both unions and management violate the law and that there is distrust and animosity, the overwhelming day-to-day encounters are amicable and law-abiding. But focusing solely on the concerns of traditional union-management relations, while important, misses the mark.
Eighty-nine percent of the American workforce is unorganized. While we engage in the long-overdue and useful task of re-examining antiquated labor laws, let us not lose sight of a basic guarantee-employees have the right to refrain from union activity as well as to join, and the decision is an individual one.
All of this is that serious reform to encourage cooperation in the workplace should focus on the overwhelming majority of non-union worksites for which unions are neither part of the problem nor in any way will they be part of the solution. Our Depression-era labor laws seriously impede creative and essential employee participation programs. But tying reform to resuscitating the union movement will not create the sought-after high-performance workplace.
