No Need to Rethink the Conservative Stance toward Labor Unions

M ichael Watson of the Capital Research Center has written a series of five articles about why conservatives should not feel the need to rethink their antagonistic relationship with organized labor. The occasion of Watson’s writing is the release of the Heritage Foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership,” a document that outlines policies the next conservative president should adopt. The labor section of the document contains unusual positions, frequently accompanied by “alternative views” that run counter to them.

Watson outlines what he calls the “Taft–Hartley consensus” that has guided conservatives for decades. He summarizes that consensus in three points:

• Restoring voluntarism to union membership by opposing laws that coerce workers to join unions and coerce union members to follow union leadership;

• Subjecting unions’ internal operations to the scrutiny and governance they deserve, given the coercive powers that federal law grants unions; and

• Limiting the potential damage that labor disputes can cause the broader economy and the American consumer.

As I have argued before, conservatives have been very successful pursuing that agenda over the past three-quarters of a century. The National Labor Relations Act, part of the New Deal, established organized labor as a government-supported activist wing of the Democratic Party. The Taft–Hartley Act, passed over Harry Truman’s veto after economy-crippling strikes, amended the NLRA by prohibiting some of unions’ most destructive practices and enabled states to pass right-to-work laws. Despite a steady media campaign meant to create the illusion that unions are experiencing a renaissance in recent years, unions have continued to diminish, with the union-membership rate at a record low of 10.1 percent overall in 2022, and only 6 percent in the private sector.

The three points of the Taft–Hartley consensus that Watson describes are not especially controversial. The challenge in implementing them is not popular resistance, but rather entrenched union power. Despite their declining membership and smaller economic footprint, unions still command significant political resources, through providing manpower and donating millions to political campaigns, almost always for progressive candidates and causes.

Union leftism has become more uniform as union membership has declined. As the bulk of union membership today is concentrated in the public sector, unions consistently advocate bigger government and increased spending. It’s not just on fiscal issues, though. “Labor unions continue to press for left-wing social policy on issues ranging from critical race theory to sexuality and gender ideology to abortion access,” Watson writes. “Wokeness” from businesses is concerning, but organized labor is not the way to counter it.

Watson points out that despite some departures from conservative policies in Donald Trump’s rhetoric, his administration was a staunch advocate for the Taft–Hartley consensus. The only union-sympathetic Republicans who have demonstrated durable success are a handful of moderate House members in places such as Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.

One contributing factor to the “rethink” of conservatives’ relationship to labor is left-wing donations. As Watson pointed out here back in 2021, groups such as American Compass (which played a leading role in the labor chapter of the “Mandate for Leadership”) have received large donations from left-wing foundations.

Since he wrote that piece, the support has continued. “Omidyar Network Fund’s ‘reimagining capitalism’ project has provided American Compass with $500,000 in ‘current investments’ as of April 2023, according to the Omidyar Network’s grant list,” Watson writes in the new article series. “According to the grant list on its website, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has provided American Compass with nearly $1.5 million, much of it explicitly related to development of ‘alternatives to neoliberalism.’”

Omidyar and Hewlett are unambiguous about their progressive goals. Omidyar seeks to “Build an Explicitly Anti-Racist and Inclusive Economy,” and Hewlett president Larry Kramer has written about “how Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek’s free-market, low-regulation economic philosophies . . . became the governing paradigm of American political economy,” Watson writes. “He then proposed how leftists like himself could create an intellectual network to foster a new, statist regime that supposedly aligns with the times.”

While the Heritage “Mandate for Leadership,” didn’t entirely abandon the Taft–Hartley consensus, it endorsed some policies that may seem more fitting coming from the left. Watson points to two:

The first is a clear violation of the Taft-Hartley consensus principle of union voluntarism: The document fails to condemn “project labor agreements” or call for repeal of the federal Davis-Bacon Act, which largely requires them. Instead, it relegates criticism of project labor agreements to an “alternative view. . . .”

But the worst proposal in Mandate does not merely leave a bad policy alone. It recommends adopting a policy imported from the European social democracies that will, despite its being advertised as “non-union worker voice and representation,” empower the labor unions that fund Democratic campaigns and liberal advocacy.

Specifically, Project 2025 proposes adopting Sen. Rubio’s TEAM Act from the previous Congress. When it was introduced, I characterized the legislation as “a misguided Republican gift to Big Labor,” and so it remains. The TEAM Act would allow the creation of “employee involvement organizations” (EIOs) modeled on continental Europe’s works councils, which are collective forums that petition employers on working conditions, are informed of proposed changes to working procedures, and engage in formal labor-management dispute resolution.

While the TEAM Act’s organizations would start out as optional at the employer level (thus arguably not violating the Taft-Hartley consensus principle of voluntarism), it would be extraordinary if they stayed that way. Germany’s works council system may be the prototype works council system in the developed industrial world: Its councils, governed by the 1972 Works Constitution Act passed under the government of Social Democratic Chancellor Willy Brandt, are very much not voluntary. If workers petition for one, it must be created and administered pursuant to the act. Its membership is elected, and the trade unions that exist parallel to the works council have the right to nominate candidates for the council.

The labor chapter of the “Mandate for Leadership” is sometimes confusing for its inclusion of “alternative views” that directly contradict the recommendation made. One example that Watson does not mention concerns overtime rules. Here’s that section from the document:

• Congress should encourage communal rest by amending the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to require that workers be paid time and a half for hours worked on the Sabbath. That day would default to Sunday, except for employers with a sincere religious observance of a Sabbath at a different time (e.g., Friday sundown to Saturday sundown); the obligation would transfer to that period instead. Houses of worship (to the limited extent they may have FLSA-covered employees) and employers legally required to operate around the clock (such as hospitals and first responders) would be exempt, as would workers otherwise exempt from overtime. [Emphasis in original.]

Alternative View. While some conservatives believe that the government should encourage certain religious observance by making it more expensive for employers and consumers to not partake in those observances, other conservatives believe that the government’s role is to protect the free exercise of religion by eliminating barriers as opposed to erecting them. Whereas imposing overtime rules on the Sabbath would lead to higher costs and limited access to goods and services and reduce work available on the Sabbath (while also incentivizing some people—through higher wages—to desire to work on the Sabbath), the proper role of government in helping to enable individuals to practice their religion is to reduce barriers to work options and to fruitful employer and employee relations. The result: ample job options that do not require work on the Sabbath so that individuals in roles that sometimes do require Sabbath work are empowered to negotiate directly with their employer to achieve their desired schedule.

The “alternative view” here is the economically sensible one, since it is correct to observe that mandating higher wages on one day of the week would encourage many people to work more on that day, rather than less. Companies such as the grocery chain Wegman’s already offer higher pay on Sundays and holidays, which they frame as a benefit to workers. The stores remain open and staffed on Sundays and holidays.

Given the document’s obvious contradictions, the next conservative administration will have a hard time using the “Mandate for Leadership” as a guide to labor policy-making. Conservatives should instead stick to the Taft–Hartley consensus, which has been very successful both economically and politically. As Watson says, “It apparently worked so well that conservatives forgot why they supported it.”