Literary Analysis Essay on The State and the Unions

Introduction

This essay contemplates and appraises the valid observations of Christopher Tomlins' book-The State and the Unions (1985) over the past quarter-century on labor unions. The decline of labor unions in the context of minimal protections is best linked with Tomlins' thesis that the New Deal only offered fake liberty to labor. The internal weakness of organizations such as using violence to ascend to power in organizing a union, skilled workers sabotaging equipment and the organizational rigidity to certain laws has also been expressed to be associated with the failed efforts to reviving struggling labor unions. The neoliberal economic policies affected the liberty of the U.S. working class which was termed as counterfeit and not limitations arising from the nature of labor itself. Therefore, the labor laws and regulations cause stagnation of the union's in achieving its goals.

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The author highlights three main points. First, he examines the causes of labor union decline due to counterfeit liberty to labor. Secondly, he illuminates the failed efforts of revival at labor unions because of the organizational rigidity and internal weakness of the same organization. Lastly, he observes that fake neoliberal economic policies offered to the U.S. working class are the main source of fraud and not the limitations of labor law alone.

Cause of Labor Union Decline

The formation of the National Labor Relations Act in the United States of America was a milestone in America's working environment for its workers. This meant that the rights of workers and the bargaining in a collective manner about their wages, hours and working conditions were catered for. Vinel appropriately positions Tomlins's contribution within an interdisciplinary paradigm that he labels the 'Critical synthesis' encompassing New Left social scientists and Critical Legal Scholars. Indeed those of us with roots in the New Left greeted Tomlin's work as a vindication" (Hurd, 2015). When it was introduced, the perception of many people was negative. According to its content, people were aware that it aimed at weakening the labor unions.

The portrayal of the National Labor Relation Act (NLRA), is reflected by Tomlins as institutional rules and regulations that would hinder the unity of workers and weaken the labor movement. Tomlins' book The State and The Unions received critics' perception as they referred to it as a "devastating analysis of the labor relations regime erected by progressive and New Deal reforms". Among the critics were, Melvyn Dubofsky who raised questions on whether a labor movement would have emerged if conflicts had not been channeled into the board of National Labor Relations. Up to now, it is evident that the declining of a labor union was associated with the thesis of Tomlins of the New Deal offered counterfeit liberty to labor.

The Failed Efforts to Revive Labor Union

According to Tomlins (1985), he argues that there was no existence of a common source of a platform for unions to resolve the disputes between the unions. The release of The American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO's) acted as a pivotal changing situation of workers and unions on how they could thereafter solve their internal weakness and revive their sinking union. It came with a set of recommendations that seemed to be a base for addressing members' or rather the union's needs or apathy. Among these sets, two were relevant, that is, increase member participation in the union to give their views and improving the methods of how the union would organize.

According to Professor Michael Brown of politics in the University of California, Santa Cruz, laments that "a common lament of labor historians that unions sacrificed a capacity to control their fate and to resist the encroachments of employers on workers' rights" (Brown, 1997, n.p). Because of this resistance, it is obvious, whatever the reasons that the union's efforts to revive itself had failed. Again, during the '90s, the observations made by Hurd (2015), reveals that a wave of optimism was suppressed by the disintegration of organizations simply because union leaders often struggled to sustain their powers despite fairly drafted procedures of ascending to power. The AFL-CIO later laid a platform for creation for Organizing Institute (OI) whose main function was to recruit, train, and place union organizers. The Organizing Institute then used a mobilization effort to increase members' activism. Therefore from the above brief review, the inability to overcome institutional rigidity and build a more activist movement is seen as a major sign of internal weakness as of external constraints.

Fake Neoliberal Economic Policies

Counterfeit economic policies were carried out in the name of individualism and the creation of economic expectations associated with markets. The economic promissory According to Hall (1993), these counterfeit neoliberal economic policies lead to a loss in its credibility and its overarching narrative and political authority. Now, the U.S. working class felt that the aim of the implementation of these economic policies was primarily to divert public attention and the conscious political program by the elites that it was intended to re-emergence of collective togetherness among the union workers and members which is not good for workers morale at all. The result was an endured decline of the union and escalating frustrations in the union.

Collective Bargaining Strategies That Companies Use When Dealing With Unions

Collective bargaining strategy can be defined as a two-way negotiation process for the terms of employment that forms an agreement between an employer and a group of workers or labor union. The agreement includes terms like wages of the workers, work rules, working conditions, overtime rates, sick days, holidays, vacation leaves, healthcare insurance, and retirement benefits. There are two collective bargaining strategies used by companies when dealing with unions. Integrative or interest-based bargaining. This kind of collective bargaining strategy applies when many issues are being discussed simultaneously-especially where a good rapport between parties exists. A real-world example according to Mckersie et al., (2015), parties shared interests on mutual satisfying agreements extensively and successfully when the interests were in greater conflicts where they resorted to more positional tactics to resolve. Distributive bargaining. This applies when few or only one issue is being tabled. A real-world example according to Mckersie et al., (2015), adversarial parties defaulted to use this kind of Collective bargaining strategy.

Conclusion

The decline of unions, escalating falling efforts of legislation, neoliberal economic policies, policy-making, and amendments, the many attempts among waning unions to revive have been a long and sometimes bloody affair. But currently, laws and policies in action have permitted workers to reach an equilibrium of sorts even in uneasy times. The tone of Hurd's article sometimes lacks optimism for any labor and cooperation among industries, therefore, labels policy as "political wasteland" (Hurd, 2015). The current situation can be a result of risk-averse, falsely perceived opposites of 'worker-employer' therefore acting as a reconciliation of their mutual independence.

References

Brown, M.K. (1997). Bargaining for social rights: unions and the reemergence of welfare capitalism, 1945-1952. Political Science Quarterly, 112(4). 645.

Hurd, R. W. (2015). Moving beyond the critical synthesis: Does the law preclude a future for US unions? Labor History, 54(2), 193-200.

Mckersie, R., Sharpe, T., Kochan, T., Eaton, A., Strauss, G., & Morgenstern, M. (2015). Bargaining Theory Meets Interest-Based Negotiations: A case study1. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 37(1), 66-96.

Tomlins, C. (1985). The state and the unions. Cambridge University Press.

Vinel, J. (2015). Christopher Tomlins' the state and the Unions today: what the critical synthesis can teach us now that unions have gone. Labor History, 54(2), 177-192.