10 - Republicans, Democrats, and the southern veto

Summary

Given evidence of the decline of organized labor, it is not surprising that there should be pressure to reform the rules governing the representation process, the National Labor Relations Board, and American labor law in general. In recent years, there have been a series of hearings in Congress reviewing the integrity and efficacy of federal labor law. In 1984 there were hearings on the question: Has labor law failed? Evidence collected during hearings on this question concerned management practices in representation elections, the NLRB's adjudication of disputes arising out of representation elections, and the design and enforcement of current statutes relating to the representation election process. The majority report of the House Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations concluded that labor law had failed and had been “deteriorating throughout the 1970s [and] has currently reached crisis proportions” (I).

Implied, even sometimes explicitly identified in these hearings, were a couple of assumptions. First, it was assumed that reforming the regulatory environment (rules of representation elections, treatment of unfair labor practices, etc.) would substantially improve labor unions' electoral performance. Second, it was further assumed that only labor law reform could ensure the future of organized labor as an American institution. It is obvious that labor law reform was not a priority of the Reagan administration; if there had been labor law reform during this era, it would have been very hostile to the interests of organized labor.