Unionism: Freedom to be slaves

Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own?

~ Matthew 20:15

Recently, an article caught my attention in the Detroit Free Press regarding the auto industry. Apparently, “The Big 3″ has transmuted into “The Little 1/2.” The article stated that Ford Motor Co. has just reached an agreement on a restructuring contract with the labor unions and that the unions have reluctantly agreed to give back some of their coveted health and pension benefits so that Ford won’t go bankrupt.

Coincidentally, we have been discussing FDR, the Supreme Court and early union cases in my administrative law and constitutional law classes that I teach at Savannah State University, particularly, West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937), which upheld the constitutionality of the minimum wage, and National Labor Relations Board v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937). The latter case was a landmark decision that declared that the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (commonly known as the Wagner Act) was constitutional. Historically, it spelled the end to the Court’s striking down of New Deal economic legislation and dramatically increased Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause, an illegitimate congressional power that has been growing exponentially to this day.

From a constitutional law point of view, 1937 was a very interesting year because FDR had just secured his second term and desperately wanted to solidify his power base as he aggressively moved toward establishing socialism in America. Dating back to the 1880s, the unions had been a key ally for the Democratic Party and was critical to solidifying FDR’s socialist dreams. There was only one obstacle – the Supreme Court, which still had four solid conservatives on the bench (aka “The Four Housemen of the Apocalypse”). By 1937, these jurists refused either to retire or bow to FDR’s fascist-like tactics to remake America into a socialist slave state.

From 1933-37 FDR’s New Deal programs were repeatedly ruled unconstitutional in cases like:

A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935) – the Court invalidated regulations of the poultry industry according to the nondelegation doctrine and as an invalid use of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause;
Railroad Retirement Bd. v. Alton R. Co. (1935) – Railroad Retirement Act unconstitutional;
United States v. Butler (1936) –Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional;
Jones v. SEC (1936) – Securities Exchange Commission rebuked for Star Chamber abuses;
Carter v. Carter Coal (1936) – Bituminous Coal Conservation Act of 1935 unconstitutional;
Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo (1936) – New York’s minimum wage law unconstitutional.

Increasingly outflanked and frustrated, FDR in 1937 threatened the Supreme Court with FDR’s court packing bill, also called the “Judiciary Reorganization Bill.” This piece of legislation would have increased the number of justices on the Supreme Court from 9 to 15 members. Of course, the six extra justices would be hand-picked by FDR himself and would have complied with his leviathan government philosophy.

The Court blinked, and two justices acceded that they would vote to approve FDR’s New Deal policies. What was one of the first cases they undertook? You guessed it – NLRB v. Jones and Laughlin Steel Corp., where instead of Benedict Arnold, we got two existing justices bought and paid for by FDR himself – Justice Owen Roberts and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes – changing their votes and ruling FDR’s New Deal programs as constitutional.

Historically, this event was called, “A switch in time saves nine.”

Fast forward from 1937 to 2009 – The Big-3 automakers, together with over 120 years of unionism, are dutifully rearranging the deck chairs on the doomed ship “Titanic.” Despite tens of billions of dollars in stimulus money the Obama administration has flushed down the toilet to GM and Chrysler, be not deceived; these companies will fail and Ford, despite their eleventh-hour restructuring deal with the unions, will not be enough to save these once fabled American companies. Why?

Recall one of the giants of the Enlightenment Era, Adam Smith (1723-90), the father of modern economics. It was Smith’s capitalist economic theories, a natural law-based economics rooted in biblical theism, that threw off the repressive shackles of mercantilism, which had hindered business for centuries. Under a capitalist paradigm, a businessman can do whatever he wills under certain limited rules of the free market. Practically all that constrained him were the limits of his own imagination and business creativity. The government played practically no role whatsoever.

Remember Adam Smith’s most famous quote:

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.

Speaking in purely philosophical and pragmatic terms, is America still under a free-market capitalist economy when entrepreneurs and businessmen aren’t free to run their business as they will based on classical natural law principles of freedom, creativity and sound business practices like supply and demand? I answer, No!

How can an outside entity who owns nothing (workers, the union, Congress, community organizers) tell the owners of a private or publicly owned company, “You have to allow us to unionize your company (card check policy), pay us whatever we demand – to hell with what the free market will allow – acceded to our every capricious and anti-business demands, and if you don’t we will go on strike.”

Unionism is a horrible idea, especially if you want a thriving, growing, productive economy. Jesus once asked a Socratic question in a parable related to economics and the sacredness of property rights: Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own?

What has 120 years of unionism in America done to the greatest economy known to mankind? Has unionism made America more competitive or less competitive? Put another way, has unionism produced a liberated, responsible, independent people to freely engage their labors in the marketplace, or has unionism produced what Lenin called a generation of “useful idiots,” slaves to socialism, and cradle-to-grave leviathan government remedies leading ultimately to an economic Great Depression, part II?

If you aren’t convinced by looking at the present declining state of the auto industry that unionism equals economic slavery, then you will probably be a good candidate to join the Obama administration. They could really use a secretary of treasury right about now.

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Ellis Washington, currently a professor of law and political science at Savannah State University, former editor at the Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute, is a graduate of John Marshall Law School and a lecturer and freelance writer on constitutional law, legal history, political philosophy and critical race theory. He has written over a dozen law review articles and several books, including “The Inseparability of Law and Morality: The Constitution, Natural Law and the Rule of Law” (2002). See his law review article “Reply to Judge Richard Posner.” Washington’s latest book is “The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust.”
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