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THE SMITH CENTER | for Private Enterprise Studies |
by
Charles W. Baird
Emeritus Professor of Economics and Former Director of the Smith Center
California State University, East Bay
In this essay I try to demonstrate that promulgators of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as it developed since Leo XIII are mistaken when they claim that the encyclicals of Leo and his successors imply that Catholics have an obligation to support contemporary unionism. There are various forms of compulsory unionism in the world, but the law with which I am most familiar is the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in the United States. I will make frequent references to the NLRA throughout the paper which, nevertheless, will be applicable to various parts of labor relations regulations in many other countries. Indeed, the International Labour Organization of the United Nations endorses the coercive principles of the NLRA.
I find that the popes have clearly endorsed freedom of association and voluntary unionism. They also have warned against affiliation with organizations that promote adversarial relations among classes of people. The NLRA denies freedom of association by requiring workers to submit to the will of a majority of their peers as to whether to be represented by a union and, if so, as to which union is given the power of monopoly representation (the principle of exclusive representation); it forces workers who do not choose to be voluntary members to pay unions dues (the principle of union security); and it protects strikers who trespass against the rights of workers who choose not to strike as well as those who offer to be striker replacements. This can only be described as compulsory unionism. Moreover, adversarial relations between workers and employers are at the heart of all NLRA procedural rules.
Contrary to many contemporary proponents of CST, Samuel Gompers, the first president of the American Federation of Labor, was strongly opposed to compulsory unionism. His successors in the American union movement have betrayed his vision.
I begin by considering the idea of freedom of association as it is understood by the incumbent pope, John Paul II. Next I examine the views of a famous American labor priest, Monsignor George C. Higgins, on the issue of compulsory unionism and try to demonstrate that his arguments in favor of compulsion are logically incorrect as well as out of line with John Paul's teaching. Then I consider encyclicals of Leo XIII, Pius X, Pius XI, John XXIII, and return to John Paul II on the question.
I end with a section on Federic Bastiat (1801 1850), the justly famous French free market economist and journalist, because Pope Leo XIII's views on these matters, and others, could well have been influenced by Bastiat who condemned compulsory unionism and endorsed voluntary unionism.
Samuel Gompers on Compulsion
Samuel Gompers (1850-1924) who founded the original AFL in 1886, and who is revered by most unionists, would have no part of compulsory union affiliation. In his last address as president of the AFL at its 1924 convention, shortly before he died, he said:
Men and women of our American trade union movement, I feel that I have earned the right to talk plainly with you. I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty the principles of voluntarism. No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion. If we seek to force, we but tear apart that which, united, is invincible.
Events of recent months made me keenly aware that the time is not far distant when I must lay down my trust for others to carry forward. When one comes to close grips with the eternal things, there comes a new sense of relative values and the less worthy things lose significance. As I review the events of my sixty years of contact with the labor movement and as I survey the problems of today and study the opportunities of the future, I want to say to you, men and women of the American labor movement, do not reject the cornerstone upon which labor's structure has been builded [sic] but base your all upon voluntary principles and illumine your every problem by consecrated devotion to that highest of all purposes human well-being in the fullest, widest, deepest sense (quoted in Keller, 1956: 90).
Samuel Gompers was not a Catholic, and he was a self-proclaimed democratic socialist; but, in my judgment, he had a clearer grasp of the moral issues involved in compulsory unionism than some who claim to speak authoritatively on CST. He would not tolerate the notion of any kind of obligation to support unions. It is sad to note that Gompers successors in the union movement paid no attention to his admonition to eschew compulsion. Eleven short years after his farewell speech they all endorsed the extremely coercive NLRA.
John Paul II on Freedom of Association
In his 1981 encyclical letter, Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II declared that workers have "the right of association, that is to form associations for the purpose of defending the vital interests of those employed in the various professions. These associations are called labor or trade unions" (§20). He went on to say that unions "are an indispensable element of social life, especially in modern industrial societies." Ten years later in his encyclical, Centesimus Annus, the pope said that the "reason for the Church's defense and approval of trade unions [is] because the right of association is a natural right of the human being" (§7). Quoting from Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, John Paul noted that "the State is bound to protect natural rights, not to destroy them; and if it forbids its citizens to form associations, it contradicts the very principle of its own existence."
Apart from the question of whether unions are "indispensable" in social life, I find nothing in the above statements with which to disagree. In fact, I enthusiastically endorse those views, and I did so before I became a Catholic. Freedom of association is a natural right of all men and women. Because the authors of the original U. S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights thought that the primary role of government is to protect and defend the natural rights of its citizens, they prohibited American governments from abrogating the freedom of association. Any law which prohibited the formation of voluntary labor unions would be unconstitutional as well as contrary to natural law.
A Reply to a Labor Priest
Monsignor George G. Higgins, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton in August 2000 for his over fifty years of work as a "labor priest," claims that the freedom of association argument of the popes in support of unions implies there is a moral duty to support modern American unions. In his 1993 book, Organized Labor and The Church, he tells the story of his 1990 testimony before the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board against the application of a Catholic teacher in Illinois for a religious exemption from the payment of forced union dues. She argued that Catholic social teaching opposes such coercion. Citing John Paul and the 1986 American bishop's pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All , about which I will say more below, to establish the Church's approval of unions, Msgr. Higgins expresses agreement with certain "authoritative commentators" that "because unions are morally necessary, there is no denying a certain moral obligation to join a union" (p. 219). I suppose that if something is "morally necessary" one has a moral obligation to support it. But it is a huge leap from John Paul's statement that unions are an indispensable part of social life in industrial society to the conclusion that they are "morally necessary." Electricity is an indispensable part of social life in industrial society, and it is even more indispensable in the information technology society of today, yet it is not morally necessary.
Let us examine the statements of the authoritative commentators cited by Msgr. Higgins to make his case. Two Jesuit priests, Jean Yves and Jacques Perrin, writing in 1961, asserted a "moral obligation to join a union" first on the grounds that nonmembers in enterprises that are unionized benefit from the actions the unions undertake (p. 219). This is just the hoary free-rider argument, and is easily refuted by noting that if unions represented only their voluntary members and no one else there could be no free riders. A quirk in the law that grants unions monopoly bargaining privileges hardly establishes a moral obligation.
Their second argument , which they assert is even stronger than the first, "rests on the moral solidarity of the members of the workers' group" (p. 219). They argue that although unions are not free to harm members who are out of favor with a union, and they are not free to cut off nonmembers from employment, "it cannot be maintained that workers are absolutely free to refuse to join a union, nor even that they ought not to suffer in some way for not joining." This supposedly strong argument is nothing more than an assertion. What is the nature of the assumed moral solidarity of members of a "workers' group"? If they are voluntary members they have a moral obligation to live up to the rules or quit their membership. This says nothing about the moral obligation of nonmembers. It is certainly no logical basis for their conclusion. Their conclusion is a non sequitur.
Msgr. Higgins also cites Father John F. Cronin, writing in 1950, who "sees the obligation [to join a union] as growing out of the social nature of human beings" (p. 220). Fr. Cronin says, "The soundest basis for such an opinion is the obligation of all to participate in group action aimed to infuse a proper order in economic life, so that the institutions of society will be directed toward the common good." Moreover, Fr. Cronin continues, "in view of the power concentration in modern life, there is need of buffer groups to safeguard individual rights." There are many groups that aim their actions towards "a proper order in economic life," but they do not all agree on what that means. Do we have a moral obligation to participate in the actions of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Push Coalition simply because he claims, with about as much legitimacy as labor unions, to seek a "proper order in economic life"? Moreover, civil society includes many "buffer groups to safeguard individual rights." The private, non-profit Institute for Justice in Washington, DC comes immediately to mind. Do we have a moral obligation to participate in its actions? Humans are social beings, but morally we must be allowed freely to choose our social affiliations. There is no moral merit in doing something because you are forced to do so. Moral merit consists in choosing to do those things that are right. That is what free will is all about.
Msgr. Higgins then writes, "I do not mean to argue that all workers, always and everywhere, are obliged to join a union" (p. 220). That's nice, but which workers do not have the obligation? He doesn't say. He does say that Catholic social teaching "favors some form of guaranteed union security that would require workers to contribute their 'fair share' to the cost of administering a legally constituted union" (p. 221). Coerced membership is sometimes not proper, but coerced dues paying is always proper. Why? He gives no logical answer at all.
The teacher who sought the religious exemption quoted from two church documents to make her case. One was from the Second Vatican Council's Gaudium Et Spes (Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) : "Among the personal rights of the human person must be counted the right of freely founding labor unions. Another such right is that of taking part freely in the activity of these unions without the risk of reprisal" ( p. 221). She reasoned that the "taking part freely" clause precluded being forced to take part. Msgr. Higgins argues that the intent of the authors of the passage was to admonish employers and governments against taking reprisals against those who choose to organize unions. He is right on the intention of the authors, but he is wrong to say that the passage does not support the teacher's argument. Words have meaning. The passage speaks of voluntary participation in unions which should be immune to reprisals. But it remains true that if participation is to be voluntary it cannot be coerced.
The second document quoted from by the teacher was the 1963 encyclical of Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris : "If we turn our attention to the economics sphere, it is clear that man has a right by natural law not only to an opportunity to work, but also to go about his work without coercion" (p. 222). She argued, correctly, that forced dues paying is a forbidden form of coercion. Msgr. Higgins' reply is to refer to the "authoritative commentators" he cited earlier.
There is a happy ending to this story. The Illinois Education Labor Relations Board was unconvinced by Msgr. Higgin's unconvincing arguments. They decided in favor of the teacher.
Leo XIII On Unionism
There are several papal encyclicals, prior to those of John Paul II, which seem to argue against forced support of labor unions. First of all, Leo XIII recognized that the Christian doctrine of free will requires freedom of choice. In Libertas (1888) he writes:
Liberty, then, as We have said, belongs only to those who have the gift of reason and intelligence. Considered as to its nature, it is the faculty of choosing means fitted for the end proposed, for he is master of his actions who can choose one thing out of many. Now, everything chosen as a means is viewed as good or useful, and since good, as such, is the proper object of our desire, it follows that freedom of choice is a property of the will, or, rather, is identical with the will in so far as it has in its action the faculty of choice (§5).
Liberty requires many things from which to choose, and freedom of making a choice is an important property of free will. This implies, for example, that in the market for representation services, workers should have many alternatives from which to choose, including self-representation, and their choice should be constrained only by right reason and the good as taught by the Church. It is inappropriate for secular authority to abrogate freedom of choice.
Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum (1891) was the beginning of CST. The Latin title of the encyclical means "Of New Things," but the standard English title, "On The Condition of the Working Classes," better conveys its message.
Unlike Msgr. Higgins, Leo clearly does not subscribe to the unionist view that labor and the owners of capital (capitalists) are natural antagonists. In §21 he writes:
Just as the symmetry of the human body is the result of the disposition of the members of the body, so in a State it is ordained by Nature that these two classes [workers and capitalists] should exist in harmony and agreement, and should, as it were, fit into one another, so as to maintain the equilibrium of the body politic. Each requires the other; capital cannot do without labour, nor labour without capital. Mutual agreement results in pleasantness and good order; perpetual conflict necessarily results in confusion and outrage.
While it is true that capitalists can abuse workers and workers can abuse capitalists this does not mean they are natural enemies. Leo would have the protagonists work out their differences by mutually beneficial agreements, not by mutually antagonistic conflict.
One remedy workers have to abuse by employers is, according to Leo, voluntary Catholic workers associations organized and run on religious principles. But his endorsement of these associations does not extend to unions in general. Much less does he hold that workers have a moral obligation to support the sort of unions that exist in much of the world today. In §58, he writes:
[T]here is a good deal of evidence which goes to prove that many of these societies [secular unions] are in the hands of invisible leaders, and are managed on principles far from compatible with Christianity and the public well-being; and that they do their best to get into their hands the whole field of labour, and to force workmen either to join them or to starve.
Leo doesn't think workers have a moral obligation to join or support unions whose actions are either unchristian or contrary to the public interest. The whole idea behind such arrangements as closed shops, union shops, agency shops and forced dues is to shut out workers who do not affiliate with unions from employment, and the unions couldn't care less about whether those they have shut out starve. Inasmuch as it is well documented that many contemporary American unions e.g., the Teamsters, the United Mine Workers, the Laborers International, and the International Longshore Workers frequently turn to violence to get what they want, there is no moral obligation to support them (see Thieblot, et. al. 1999). Inasmuch as the National Education Association has long been on record as supporting unrestricted abortion rights including partial birth abortion there cannot be a moral obligation to support it. In my view since the NLRA (1) assumes that the interests of workers and employers are naturally at odds, (2) promotes adversarial labor relations (3) is coercive with respect to representation, and (4) permits, and even encourages, picket line trespass against individual rights, there is no moral obligation to support any contemporary American union.
On the last point, consider this example of routine picket line behavior. Waremart Foods in Antelope, California, a union-free store, held its grand opening in January 1999. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union picketed the store to protest its union-free status. First, the union trespassed on the store's property in an attempt to prevent customers from entering the store, suppliers from making deliveries, and workers from working. The trespass itself was a violent act, but the violence was even more overt. "Union agents shouted threatening slogans at customers and employees and forced them to walk in the street, followed them to their cars, and wrote down their license plate numbers" (BNA 2001: AA-1). A California appeals court allowed this behavior on the basis that a new California statute, which copies the anti-injunction provisions of a federal statute, prohibits courts from getting involved in such matters. This is what the press usually calls "peaceful" picketing, but I doubt Leo would consider it compatible with the public well-being, much less Christian.
In a later encyclical, Longinqua (1895), written to American bishops on Catholicism in the United States, Leo goes directly to the point of justice and unionism.
[W]orking classes assuredly have the right to unite in association for the promotion of their interests . But it is very important to take heed with whom they are to associate, lest whilst seeking aid for the improvement of their condition they may be imperilling [sic] far weightier interests. The most effectual precaution against this peril is to determine with themselves at no time or in any matter to be parties to the violation of justice (§16).
[W]hilst it is proper and desirable to assert and secure the rights of the many, yet this is not to be done by a violation of duty; and that these are very important duties; not to touch what belongs to another; to allow everyone to be free in the management of his own affairs; not to hinder any one to dispose of his services when he please and where he please. The scenes of violence and riot which you witnessed last year in your own country [referring to the nationwide Pullman strike of 1894] sufficiently admonish you that America too is threatened with the audacity and ferocity of the enemies of public order (§17, emphasis added).
The italicized lines from §17 leave no doubt whatsoever that Leo XIII would not endorse modern unionism in America. The National Labor Relations Act allows union bosses to touch and take what belongs to another (forced dues), denies workers the right to manage their own affairs (exclusive representation) prohibits workers from disposing of his services when they please and where they please (strike rules).
Pius X on Adversarial Relations and Free Choice
In 1912, Leo's successor, Pius X, wrote Singulari Quadam, a short encyclical addressed to the Bishops of Germany on the question of whether the bishops should allow Catholic workers to join non-Catholic unions. First he sets a minimum condition on such unions:
All who glory in the name of Christian, either individually or collectively, if they wish to remain true to their vocation, may not foster enmities and dissensions [sic] between classes of civil society. On the contrary, they must promote mutual concord and charity (§3).
Catholics should abstain from unions that promote adversarial relations.
Second, he says that Catholic workers must examine non-Catholic unions very carefully to be sure that they do not violate any Catholic religious principles:
Furthermore, if Catholics are to be permitted to join the trade unions, these associations must avoid everything that is not in accord, either in principle or practice, with the teachings and commandments of the Church or the proper ecclesiastical authorities. Similarly, everything is to be avoided in their literature or public utterances or actions which in the above view would incur censure (§7).
Compulsory union membership in non-Catholic unions makes it impossible for Catholics to choose as Pius X instructs them to do. And Catholics should never choose to join any union, such as the NEA, that in its literature and public utterances supports unfettered abortion.
Pius XI on Unionism
Pope Pius XI wrote Quadragesimo Anno (1931), to take stock of the situation of working people forty years after Rerum Novarum. In it he applauds the development of voluntary Catholic worker's associations, based firmly on the principle of freedom of association, and says they have an indispensable role to play in a just society. In §79 of the encyclical Pius writes:
Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.
In §80 he develops this idea:
The Supreme authority of the State ought, therefore, to let subordinate groups handle matters and concerns of lesser importance, which would otherwise dissipate its efforts greatly . Therefore, those in power should be sure that the more perfectly a graduated order is kept among the various associations, in observance of the principle of 'subsidiary function,' the stronger social authority and effectiveness will be the happier and more prosperous the condition of the State.
This is, of course, what has come to be known as the principle of subsidiarity. According to Pius XI voluntary workers associations, unions or guilds are examples of "subordinate groups" that the State should refrain from destroying or absorbing. They are closer to their members than the State is, and therefore they are better able than the State to serve the interests of their members.
Moreover, for these groups to be effective in serving those interests, individuals must be free to choose to decide with which groups to associate. In §86 of the encyclical Pius writes:
The teaching of Leo XIII on the form of political government, namely that men are free to choose whatever form they please, provided that proper regard is had for requirements of justice and of the common good, is equally applicable in due proportion, it is hardly necessary to say, to the guilds of the various industries and professions (emphasis added).
There is no room for compulsory unionism in Pius' view of the just society.
To put Pius XI's statements in historical context, Mussolini had set up a corporatist state based on "syndicates" of workers (unions) and employers (employer associations) collaborating with government in economic planning. In § 92 of the encyclical Pius described the syndicates and commented on their legitimacy.
Anyone is free to join a syndicate or not, and only within these limits can this kind of syndicate be called free; for syndical dues and special assessments are exacted of absolutely all members whether they are workers or employers.
Note that forced joining is enjoined on the basis that members have to pay dues. This clearly means that forced dues are violations of freedom of association. Note also the "or not" part of Pius' statement. In his mind, freedom of association clearly includes the freedom not to associate.
One could argue that here Pius was talking only about unions in fascist Italy, and therefore his admonition doesn't apply to modern unions. But in 1931 Mussolini's fascism was not associated with Hitler and Nazism. Mussolini's corporatist state was considered by many merely as an alternative form of government. Indeed, in 1933 Roosevelt's New Deal under the National Industrial Recovery Act was to a large extent a corporatist arrangement partially inspired by the early Mussolini. Why would the pope apply different standards to officially endorsed Italian unions and officially endorsed American unions? If freedom of association is the key, it logically applies equally in both cases.
John XXIII on Individual Rights in Associations
In Mater et Magistra (1961) John XXIII reiterates the teachings of Leo XIII and Pius XI on freedom of association for all people including workers. He speaks of workers' individual, natural right to form associations to pursue their legitimate interests and emphasizes the rights of individuals in those associations.
Pope Leo XIII also defended the worker's natural right to enter into association with his fellows. Such associations may consist either of workers alone or of workers and employers, and should be structured in a way best calculated to safeguard the workers' legitimate professional interest. And it is the natural right of the workers to work without hindrance, freely, and on their own initiative within these associations for the achievement of these ends (§22).
Governments should promote such freedom of association, but in so doing must not allow trespass against individual rights.
[H]owever extensive and far-reaching the influence of the State on the economy may be, it must never be exerted to the extent of depriving the individual citizen of his freedom of action. It must rather augment his freedom while effectively guaranteeing the protection of his essential personal rights (§ 55).
John applauds the affiliation of Catholics with secular associations that respect and protect individual rights.
We wish further to praise those dear sons of Ours who in a true Christian spirit collaborate with other professional groups and workers' associations which respect the natural law and the freedom of conscience of their members (§102).
Finally, John sums up the essence of Catholic Social Teaching as a concern for individual human beings, not collectives. Rights of individuals are not to be subordinated to rights of associations.
The permanent validity of the Catholic Church's social teaching admits of no doubt (§218).
This teaching rests on one basic principle: individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of every social institution. That is necessarily so, for men are by nature social beings. This fact must be recognized, as also the fact that they are raised in the plan of Providence to an order of reality which is above nature (§219)
John Paul II on Unions and Political Parties
American unions are a mainstay of the Democratic Party. Unions donate huge amounts of monetary and in-kind electoral support to Democratic candidates. This includes direct campaign contributions, funding of issue ads, and the deployment of union employees to work in political campaigns free of charge while they are still on the unions' payrolls. In the 2000 election cycle the AFL-CIO together with its constituent unions contributed as much as $500,000,000 in these ways to the efforts to elect Al Gore president and return control of both houses of Congress to the Democrats. Without union support the Democrats would be a permanent minority party in the federal government and in most state governments. Most contributions by unions are paid from dues that workers whom they represent are forced to pay as a condition of continued employment. Around 40 percent of union members, and a much larger percentage of all workers represented by unions, routinely vote for Republican candidates; yet, they are forced to pay dues that are used to support Democrats.
Pope John Paul II decries close association between unions and political parties. In Laborem Exercens (§ 20) he writes:
[T]he role of unions is not to 'play politics' in the sense that the expression is commonly understood today. Unions do not have the character of political parties struggling for power; they should not be subjected to the decision of political parties or have too close links with them. In fact, in such a situation they easily lose contact with their specific role, which is to secure the just right of workers within the framework of the common good of the whole of society; instead they become an instrument used for other purposes.
It seems that, if asked, John Paul would say the relationship between American unions and the Democratic Party is too close. The Democrats do use the unions for purposes other than those ordinarily thought of as labor issues.
One of these other purposes for which union dues money is used in the United States in the political marketplace is the promotion of unrestricted abortion rights including partial birth abortion. The the National Education Association, for example, has adopted formal "pro-choice" resolutions that call for political action in support of abortion rights. No workers, much less Catholic workers, should be forced to pay union dues to support abortion. Even if forced dues were abolished, it seems to me that Catholics are morally obliged to refuse to become voluntary members of unions that support abortion rights.
John Paul II on Government Sector Strikes
Government sector unions represent over 43% of all unionized workers in the United States, and that number is growing. The unions' market share (density) in government employment is over 37%, and in private employment it is only 9%. In another ten years American unionism will be a struggle of government employees to take more and more from private sector employees, whether union-free or union-impaired, in the form of taxes. Already, former government sector union officials, such as John Sweeney from the SEIU, have taken over positions of power in the AFL-CIO. Unionism has never been a matter of a struggle of workers against the owners of capital. It has always been a struggle of workers who want to unionize against workers who prefer to remain union-free. Soon it will become a struggle of workers who live off of taxes against workers who earn income and try to accumulate assets in the private sector.
At the end of §20 of Laborem Exercens, John Paul writes:
One method used by unions in pursuing just rights of their members is the strike or work stoppage . This method is recognized by Catholic social teaching as legitimate in the proper conditions and within just limits.
While admitting that it is a legitimate means, we must at the same time emphasize that a strike remains, in a sense, an extreme means. It must not be abused; it must not be abused especially for 'political' purposes.
Furthermore, it must never be forgotten that, when essential community services are in question, they must in every case be ensured, if necessary by means of appropriate legislation. Abuse of the strike weapon can lead to the paralysis of the whole of socioeconomic life, and this is contrary to the requirements of the common good of society, which also corresponds to the properly understood nature of work itself.
The last paragraph clearly refers to strikes of employees in government employment, especially strikes by police, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, sanitation workers, and government school teachers. Yet it is an article of faith of John Sweeney et. al. that government sector strikes should be subject to the same rules as private sector strikes. In the United States that means that anything, including violence, to prevent non-strikers and striker replacements from working goes. The middle paragraph quoted above implies John Paul would consider such behavior an abuse for political purposes.
What are the "proper conditions" and "just limits" referred to by John Paul in the first paragraph above? He does not say. However, in §44 of Centesimus Annus he writes that man
is by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.
Strikers in the United States routinely attempt to isolate, oppress, exploit and in some cases annihilate non-strikers and striker replacements. Note that the pope says that not even a majority vote justifies the abrogation of fundamental human rights. Any worker has a natural right to refuse to work for compensation he considers inadequate. It follows that any number of like-minded workers can withhold their labor together. But no individual or no group has a natural right to prevent workers who disagree with them from continuing to work or from replacing striking workers. A majority vote does not, cannot, change natural rights. So much for the right to strike as it is embodied in the NLRA.
The American Bishops' Pastoral Letter of 1986
Msg. Higgins is not alone in his confusion about CST and unions. In their 1986 pastoral letter, Economic Justice for All, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops betrayed their own lack of understanding of economics and the principle of freedom of association as they apply to unions. Under the rubric "Working People and Labor Unions," they follow the NLRA by justifying American unions on the basis of an alleged inequality of bargaining power between workers and employers.
The way power is distributed in a free market economy frequently gives employers greater bargaining power than employees in the negotiation of labor contracts. Such unequal power may press workers into a choice between an inadequate wage or no wage at all (§103).
The inequality of bargaining power has long been used as an excuse to deny workers the freedom to choose, on an individual basis, whether to have unions represent them and even whether to pay money to unions. But the inequality of bargaining power is a hoary myth.
The principal reason for the persistent belief in labor's bargaining power disadvantage is what might be called the fallacy of size. An employer with a thousand employees controls more resources than any one employee. Given all the other contracts such an employer is involved in, any one employee may well think his individual contract is relatively insignificant. But the employer is simply the central contracting party of the firm. The number of contracts says little about the employer's bargaining power with respect to any one of them. For example, I am only one of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of customers of Safeway (a California supermarket chain). Safeway controls far more economic resources than I do. Yet, I do not have a bargaining disadvantage with Safeway. If I don't like the offers made by Safeway I can take my custom to any of several other supermarket chains. It is the existence of alternatives, not the economic size of the parties, that determines bargaining power.
In any market, whether for labor, groceries or computers, sellers compete with other sellers to strike deals with buyers, and buyers compete with other buyers to strike deals with sellers. Whether a buyer or a seller, a person's bargaining power depends on the quantity and quality of exchange alternatives he or she has. In the labor market the buyers are employers and the sellers are workers. In an open labor market, workers compete with other workers to be hired by employers, and employers compete with other employers to hire workers. If a worker has many alternative employment opportunities - i.e., if there are many employers eager to hire him - he will have a lot of bargaining power vis a vis any one employer. If there is only one employer for whom he could work, he will have very little bargaining power vis a vis that employer. Similarly, if an employer has many workers who apply for a particular job, he will have a lot of bargaining power vis a vis any one worker. If there is only one worker willing to offer to sell labor services to him, he will have very little bargaining power via a vis that worker.
For any given degree of competition among employers to hire, workers will have more bargaining power when there is less competition among workers to be hired. That is what unions are all about. They seek to quash competition among workers to be hired. (They say they want to "take wages out of competition.") They seek to eliminate hiring alternatives employers otherwise would have. They do so by trying to impose standard union wages and trying to exclude union-free workers from union-impaired markets. A union that succeeds in doing so in any particular market becomes a monopolist in that market.
Likewise, for any given degree of competition among workers, employers will have more bargaining power when there is less hiring competition among employers. If there is no competition among employers either because there is only one employer in a particular labor market, or because the employers in that market have formed a hiring cartel workers in that market will have almost no bargaining power. Economists call this monopsony.
In the early and mid 19th Century there were many labor markets in which employers had monopsony power. The extent of this power gradually waned over the last third of the century, and in the first half of the 20th Century it all but disappeared. Henry Ford did more to increase the bargaining power of workers in general than any labor union has ever done. He did so by mass producing his early automobiles at low prices which made them available to ever increasing numbers of people. Automobiles increased the effective job search area for more and more workers. While workers without automobiles had access to very few alternative employment alternatives, workers with automobiles had many, many more. Today, technological progress in transportation and communication has eliminated monopsony power in almost all labor markets.
Evidence to support the claim that monopsony power was waning long before labor unions played any significant role has been compiled by Morgan Reynolds (1991) at Texas A&M University. Briefly, over the 19th Century, the trend of real wages and workers' material circumstances was strongly positive, worker initiated job-switching increased steadily and substantially, and large firms (ones likely to have any monopsony power that existed) consistently paid increasingly higher wages than small firms. All this took place without labor unions. Workers had bargaining power without unions then, and they have even more bargaining power without unions now. Moreover, they know it. In 2000, notwithstanding all the advantages the NLRA gives unions in organizing, only 9 percent of the private sector workforce was unionized. This is about the same density that existed before the original version of the NLRA was passed in 1935. The demand for unionization among private sector workers continues to decline.
In §104 the bishops discuss the freedom of association of workers and ignore the fact that freedom of association logically implies freedom to choose not to associate. They endorse NLRA rules on strikes, and they call for labor law reform.
The Church fully supports the right of workers to form unions or other associations to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions. This is a specific application of the more general right to associate. Unions may also legitimately resort to strikes where this is the only available means to the justice owed to workers. No one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself. Therefore, we firmly oppose organized efforts, such as those regrettably now seen in this country, to break up existing unions and prevent workers from organizing. U.S. labor law reform is needed to meet these problems as well as to provide more timely and effective remedies for unfair labor practices.
As I said above, I fully agree that "no one may deny the right to organize without attacking human dignity itself." However the corollary of that proposition is that no one may deny the right of workers to choose not to organize without attacking human dignity, and that right is denied by the NLRA.
It should go without saying, but apparently the bishops forgot, that person A's freedom of association does not mean that all those with whom A want to associate must associate with A. If freedom of association is universal, if all humans have full freedom of association, all humans must be free to refuse to enter associations they do not want. Otherwise we would have to say that A's freedom of association is different from the freedom of association of others. We would be saying that if A wants to associate with B, B has no right to decline. A's freedom overrides B's freedom.
The bishops' regret at seeing organized efforts in America to break up existing unions refers to the 1981 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association (PATCO) strike against the Federal Aviation Administration. It is illegal for federal workers to strike in the U. S. This is consistent with John Paul II's teaching against strikes involving "essential community services." President Reagan responded to the PATCO strike by firing the strikers and hiring permanent replacements. Among unionists, and the American bishops, it became conventional wisdom that throughout the 1980s this incident gave heart to private sector employers to take more aggressive stands against union strike threats and unionization of their employees under the NLRA. This what the bishops saw as efforts "to break up existing unions and prevent workers from organizing."
Any worker, in the government or private sector, has a natural right to withhold his labor services from an employer who does not offer the worker terms and conditions of employment that the worker finds unacceptable. However, once a worker has accepted an employment contract he is obliged to live up to the terms of the contract until it expires at which time a new contract may be negotiated. If a worker withholds labor services during the life of a contract, that is tantamount to quitting the job, which any worker is free to do at any time. But in that case the employer is, or should be, free to hire a permanent replacement.
The argument doesn't change when a group of workers withhold their labor at the same time. In the absence of an extant contract, a group of like minded workers can agree to withhold their labor services from any employer who does not offer acceptable terms and conditions of employment. This is simply an application of freedom of association. If a hiring contract is in effect, a collective withholding of labor services is equivalent to a collective quitting of employment. The PATCO strikers violated their existing hiring contract, which prohibited a collective withholding of labor, and still maintained that they owned the jobs.
Whether an existing contract is in effect or not, when striking workers try to prevent replacement workers from taking their place, they abrogate the replacements' freedom of association. Moreover, striking workers have no natural right to try to prevent suppliers from making deliveries to strike targets or customers from buying from strike targets. The targets' suppliers and customers are human beings with the same natural freedom of association that the striking workers have. Yet every strike under the terms of the NLRA is accompanied by government approved and enforced picket lines whose only purpose is to try to prevent replacement workers from working for, suppliers from making deliveries to, and customers from patronizing strike targets. Due to the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Enmons [410 US 396 (1973)], unions that call strikes are immune from federal prosecution of acts of violence involved in labor disputes.
The bishops' reference to U.S. labor law reform refers to the failed Labor Law Reform Bill in 1978, which would have exacerbated the NLRA's denial of full freedom of association. Only a Senate filibuster prevented the proposed legislation from becoming law. At the behest of union officers who were finding it increasingly difficult to capture dues payers, President Carter and like-minded members of Congress tried to amend the NLRA to give American workers less freedom of choice on the question of unionization than they now have. For example, they tried to force employers to recognize unions as monopoly bargaining agents on the basis of worker signatures on authorization cards rather than by secret ballot elections. Even if a majority of workers signed such cards, that would not mean that the union would have majority support among the workers. Such signatures are collected on a face-to-face basis from individual workers. Given the history of union violence in organization campaigns, individual workers may decide to sign out of fear rather than conviction. The "more timely and effective remedies for unfair labor practices" included in the proposed changes of 1978 were such things as preventing employers from having any effective voice at all during organizing campaigns. It seems that when workers hear both sides of the argument over organizing more and more of them vote against organizing. The bishops' proposed response was to gag the employers.
The opening sentence in §104 refers to "the right of workers to form unions or other associations [emphasis added] to secure their rights to fair wages and working conditions." So the bishops recognize that unions should not have a monopoly in the business of securing fair wages and working conditions for workers. Yet, under the NLRA, unions do have just such a monopoly. In 1992 the National Labor Relations Board, in the Electromation case, declared that voluntary committees set up by a union-free employer to give employees voice in decisionmaking in the firm were illegal company unions under Section 8(a)2 of the NLRA. The effect of the ruling was that the only form of worker-management cooperation immune from an unfair labor practice charge was union-management cooperation. This clearly violates freedom of association and the popes' principle of subsidiarity. Yet the Labor Law Reform Bill of 1978 would have made 8(a)2 restrictions much worse. We don't know what the American bishops would have said about Electromation, but in their 1995 follow-up to Economic Justice for All, they merely reaffirmed all they said in 1986.
According to Edward B. McLean (1985), at Wabash College in Indiana, up until the late 1960s the Pastoral Letters of the American bishops as they pertained to unions were consistent with voluntary unionism. However, "From this point on the American Bishops' Pastoral Letters suggest or, at other times, specifically indicate their support of compulsory unionism" (p. 105). He attributes this to "the bishops' failure to distinguish between moral injunctions and endorsement of specific policy choices." Whatever the explanation, the American bishops are confused on unionism.
Bastiat and Unionism
Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French classical liberal political economist, journalist, and politician. He is best known for his unwavering support of free trade and his opposition to all forms of socialism. He believed that private property, voluntary exchange and the rule of law led to a natural harmony of interests among economic actors. He dedicated his treatise on political economy, Economic Harmonies (1850b), to the youth of France that they may be put "on the road to this truth: All men's impulses, when motivated by legitimate self-interest, fall into a harmonious social pattern (emphasis in original)." Bastiat was a Roman Catholic who based his political philosophy on God-given natural human rights that are ontologically and logically prior to the state. The sole legitimate purpose of man-made law, according to Bastiat, is to protect all individuals from trespasses by other individuals against their natural rights. Bastiat called such trespasses "illegal plunder." When governments do more than guard against illegal plunder they commit their own trespasses which he called "legal plunder."
According to Leonard Liggio (2001), Pope Leo XIII was acquainted with at least some of Bastiat's writings and thought that he had useful things to say to Catholics who are concerned with social and economic issues.
Pope Leo XIII as an Italian bishop, Cardinal Pecci, in 1877, shortly before his election to the Papacy, publicized the concept of natural harmony among the true interests among men in their social and economic relations demonstrated by Bastiat. Cardinal Pecci declared of Bastiat: 'A celebrated French economist has clearly explained the many benefits that society brings to man; and that marvel is worthy of our attention' (p. 504).
Whether or not Leo XIII took any cues from Bastiat regarding unionism, their views on the relevant issues are harmonious. For example, as I have shown above, Leo asserted a harmony of interests between owners of capital and workers. Their differences can and should be worked out through mutually beneficial voluntary exchanges. Moreover, Leo and his successors based their support of voluntary unions on the natural law principle of freedom of association. So, too, did Bastiat. Leo and his successors condemned coercive aspects of unionism, so, too, did Bastiat.
On November 17, 1849 Bastiat delivered a "Speech on the Suppression of Industrial Combinations," in the Legislative Assembly. He spoke in favor of repealing legislation that prevented workers from organizing unions and calling strikes. The speech startled both his traditional adversaries on the left (the socialists) and his occasional allies on the right (the conservatives). To the delight of the left and the chagrin of the right, he seemed to change sides. The truth is he simply consistently applied the same principles of classical liberalism that informed all of his legislative decisions. He asked how the formation of "combinations" of workers and even strikes by such combinations could be an offense since they are examples of freedom of association.
It is said: 'It is the combination itself that constitutes the offense.' I cannot accept this doctrine because the word combination is synonymous with association; it has the same etymology and the same meaning. Combination in itself, aside from the end it aims at and the means it employs, cannot be considered as an offense (p.302, emphasis in original).
Now, suppose a group of workers says to an employer:
Since you will not give us all that we ask of you, we are going to quit, and, by using influence, by exerting pressures that are well known and that depend on our identity of interests and our comradeship, we are going to get all the other workers in other shops to go on strike (p.302, emphasis in original).
To say that a collective refusal to work is an offense in itself is tantamount to saying "that whoever refuses to work at wage rates that he does not accept will be punished" (p.303).
But is there any conscience that can admit that the strike is an offense in itself, independently of the means employed? Does a man not have a right to refuse to sell his labor at a rate that does not suit him?
The reply to me will be: 'All this may be true when only a single individual is involved, but it is not true when men have associated together for this purpose.'
But, gentlemen, an action that is innocent in itself is not criminal because it is multiplied by a certain number of men. I do not understand, then, how one can say a strike is criminal. If one man has the right to say to another: 'I don't want to work under such and such conditions,' two or three thousand men have the same right; they have a right to quit. This is a natural right, which should also be a legal right (pp.303-04).
Bastiat's approval of a strike in the sense of a group of like-minded workers each agreeing not to work under unacceptable terms and conditions of employment cannot be read as an endorsement of strikes under the NLRA. The latter involve what Bastiat would call legal plunder because the NLRA permits workers who refuse to work to try to prevent other workers who consider the terms offered by the employer acceptable from taking their place. It permits strikers to trespass against the natural rights of association of others.
This then, is the offense: the well-known pressures violence and intimidation. This is the offense; this is what you ought to punish (p. 304, emphasis in original).
Bastiat agrees "that in most cases [of strikes] the workers do harm themselves" (305), but truly peaceful strikes in which strikers do not violate the voluntary exchange rights of others should not be criminal acts. A properly limited government , according to Bastiat, must allow people to make mistakes. If workers harm themselves in legitimate strikes, they will discover their errors and mend their ways. He also agrees that "the strike has a harmful effect on the whole of society."
There is no doubt that it does; but the reasoning is the same: a man judges that, by quitting work, he will obtain a better rate of wages in a week or ten days; undoubtedly this involves a loss of labor for society, but what would you do? Do you want the law to cure everything? It is impossible; in that case, we must say that a merchant who waits for a better time to sell his coffee or sugar harms society. Then we must always invoke the law and call upon the state to intervene (p.306).
Most modern American "liberals" would say it is desirable to "always invoke the law and call upon the state to intervene" (witness California politicians' pronouncements in the Spring and Summer of 2001 on electricity). But to Bastiat this was a reductio ad absurdum.
So there is no doubt that Bastiat supported voluntary unionism. Neither is there any doubt that he would condemn the U. S. Congress for enacting the coercive NLRA. The Law (1850a) is a short book in which Bastiat lays out, in characteristically clear and concise prose, his political philosophy based on God-given natural rights. It is here that he explains the proper (limited) scope of government and in so doing makes the distinction between illegal and legal plunder. On the proper function of the law he asks:
Can the law which necessarily requires the use of force rationally be used for anything except protecting the [natural] rights of everyone? I defy anyone to extend it beyond this purpose without perverting it and, consequently, turning might against right. This is the most fatal and most illogical social perversion that can possibly be imagined. It must be admitted that the true solution is contained in these simple words: Law is organized justice (emphasis in original).
Now this must be said: When justice is organized by law that is, by force this excludes the idea of using law (force) to organize any human activity what ever, whether it be labor, charity, agriculture, commerce, industry, education, art, or religion. The organizing by law of any one of these would inevitably destroy the essential organization justice. For truly, how can we imagine force being used against the liberty of citizens without it also being used against justice, and thus acting against its proper purpose? (p. 24)
The job of the law is to protect all individuals from trespasses against their natural rights by other individuals. Justice means that all individuals receive equal treatment by the law in its defense of those natural rights. When government does its job properly, the organization of labor arises spontaneously out of the decisions, plans, and actions of individuals in the legitimate pursuit of their self interest. If government imposes an organization of labor through legislation such as the NLRA, justice is destroyed. Government enacts legal plunder.
Bastiat explicitly cites monopoly unionism as an example of legal plunder in a footnote on page 27:
If the special privilege of government protection against competition a monopoly were granted only to one group in France, the iron workers, for instance, this act would so obviously be legal plunder that it could not last for long. It is for this reason that we see all the protected trades combined into a common cause. They even organize themselves in such a manner as to appear to represent all persons who labor (emphasis in original).
The NLRA has bestowed monopoly status on American unions through exclusive representation, compulsory union dues, and unique privileges and immunities, extending even to violence, during strikes.
Bastiat reiterates his opposition to using law to organize labor on the grounds that legitimate law is negative while any law regulating labor is positive.
As a friend of mine once remarked, this negative concept of law is so true that the statement, the purpose of the law is to cause justice to reign, is not a rigorously accurate statement. In fact, it is injustice, instead of justice, that has an existence of its own. Justice is achieved only when injustice is absent (emphasis in original).
But when the law, by means of its necessary agent, force, imposes upon men a regulation of labor it acts positively on people. It substitutes the will of the legislator for their own wills; the initiative of the legislator for their own initiatives (p. 29).
Finally, Bastiat emphasizes that his insistence on negative law and the right of individuals to abstain from associations they do not like do not imply that he is opposed to associations per se.
[W]e assure the socialists that we repudiate only forced organization, not natural organization. We repudiate the forms of association that are forced upon us, not free association. We repudiate forced fraternity, not true fraternity. We repudiate the artificial unity that does nothing more than deprive persons of individual responsibility. We do not repudiate the natural unity of mankind under Providence (p. 32, emphasis in original).
In Conclusion
Bastiat is never cited as a source of Catholic Social Teaching, but perhaps he ought to be. He was Catholic, and many of his views regarding social and economic matters were later expressed by Leo XIII and several of his successors. He is not the only lay Catholic thinker to contribute to CST. Consider, for example, Michael Novak's contributions today. Contemporary CST by the American Conference of Catholic Bishops and priests like Monsignor Higgins, especially regarding unions, could be much improved, and brought more into line with the teachings of Leo XIII, John Paul II, and the other popes cited here, if it incorporated the thought of Bastiat and Novak.
REFERENCES
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______________ (1991) "On Strikers and Their Replacements," Government Union Review, Volume 12, Number 3 (Summer 1991): 1-29
______________ (1995) "Toward Equality and Justice in Labor Markets, The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies , Volume 20, Number 2 (Summer 1995): 163-186.
Bastiat, Frederic (1849) "Speech on the Suppression of Industrial Combinations," in Selected Essays on Political Economy, ed. George B. de Huszar, trans. Seymour Cain, Irvington-on Hudson, NY: Foundation for Economic Education, 1964.
___________ (1850a) The Law, trans. Dean Russell, Irvington-on Hudson, NY: Foundation for Economic Education, 1950.
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