The NLRB and the need for a real union

Which side are you on, boys?
Which side are you on?
You're either for the rich man, 
or the union standing strong...

Dave Weigel has a piece up at Slate discussing the current dispute between Boeing and the NLRB over whether or not Boeing should be permitted to open a plant in South Carolina, given that the chairman of Boeing explicitly stated he was doing so to avoid labor unrest- a violation of the Wagner Act. Apparently the Republicans are annoyed that a recess appointment by President Obama is trying to keep Boeing from opening a plant in a red state rather than a blue state, and are starting to mutter about abolishing the NLRB- the House even tried defunding it.

Of course I totally agree with getting rid of the NLRB, but then I also think we should get rid of the whole cluster of laws that exist to defang unions and turn them into the lapdogs of business. A real union, truly devoted to the workers and the working class, wouldn't have run sniveling to the NLRB when Boeing decided to move the plant. The skilled workers at the Boeing plants up here would have struck instead while union organizers went down to South Carolina to organize the plant there. And in a truly free labor market, South Carolina's "Right to Work" law would be seen for what it truly is- a blatant infringement on the right to contract.

A freed market needs and almost certainly would have real unions, more akin to the Wobblies than the feeble AFL-CIO crowd. Contra Ayn Rand, the working class truly are the lions of capitalism, the driving force of the economy. Without workers, nothing happens. In a freed market, the workers could easily muster a great deal more market power than they can today. Without laws against secondary actions, for instance, skilled workers who have already leveraged their market power to secure union recognition could then refuse to engage in business with a firm that wouldn't let its workers (skilled or unskilled) organize. The Teamsters might refuse to deliver to nonunion grocery stores, for instance, or Boeing machinists might refuse to fill orders for nonunion airlines. Workers en masse have a tremendous amount of market power, and most labor legislation exists to strip them of it, to promote "industrial peace," which is another way of saying exploitation. Because if you cannot decide when to work and when not to work, if you cannot use your market power to secure the best contract you can, if the government can order you back to work, you are being exploited. The modest gains to labor enshrined in our labor law function as labor pacifiers, not labor equalizers. Let the workers of the world unite, and they themselves can better their own condition, without state help.

And I'll never trust a rich man
As long as I draw breath
To keep his marble mansion
He'll starve your child to death...
-Blue Highway, "Union Man"