Angela’s got a post that raises some interesting question about contracts, and ties those issues to ones about contracts of all sorts - social, wage, others. This resonates with something else I’ve been reading lately - Staughton Lynd’s book Solidarity Unionism, which some folk from my IWW branch are going to discuss soon in part because Lynd’s the main speaker at Midwest Wobfest which our branch is hosting.
The book includes a number of quotes by folk on the left from the time, critical of the National Labor Relations Act (aka the Wagner Act). That’s quite interesting, and to my mind they were right. The NLRA wasn’t the only factor, of course. There was also the CIO. Lynd said in a speech at the 2002 IWW General Assembly,
“Lewis, Reuther and most of the other CIO founding fathers deliberately and voluntarily chose to include no-strike language in their contracts. They appear to have done so for two reasons: first, to show employers that they were “responsible” labor leaders who would help to maintain labor peace; and second, to control their own rank-and-file members.”
(He also spoke at the centenary last year, giving a speech and participating in sessions dedicated to Glaberman and Weir and what they have to offer today. I missed much the speech because I was sick but the G and W sessions were great.)
Labor peace, that’s what the CIO had to offer employers and government. Policing workers. This sentiment is also expressed in the Labor Management Relations Act, also known as Taft-Hartley, which modified the Wagner Act. From the “Short Title and Declaration of Policy” -
Industrial strife which interferes with the normal flow of commerce and with the full production of articles and commodities for commerce can be avoided or substantially minimized if employers, employees, and labor organizations recognize under law one’s legitimate rights in their relations with each other, and above all recognize under law that neither party has any right in its relation with any other to engage in acts or practice which jeopardize the public health, safety, or interest.
It is the purpose and policy of this Act, in order to promote the full flow of commerce, to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce, to provide orderly and peaceful procedures for preventing the interference by either with the legitimate rights of the other, to protect the rights of individual employees in their relations with labor organizations whose activities affect commerce, to define and proscribe practices on the part of labor and management which affect commerce and are inimical to the general welfare, and to protect the rights of the public in connection with labor disputes affecting commerce.
There’s a two page excerpt here worth reading in its entirety. Protection of commerce from injury is a common refrain, as is protection of the public from interruptions of commerce.
In looking up stuff about all this I found this quote at wikipedia from right libertarian economist Murray Rothbard about the consequences of Taft-Hartley:
On October 4, 1971, President Nixon invoked the Taft-Hartley Act to obtain a court injunction forcing the suspension of a dock strike for eighty days; this was the ninth time the federal government had used the Act in a dock strike. Months earlier, the head of the New York City teachers’ union went to jail for several days for defying a law prohibiting public employees from striking. It is no doubt convenient for a long-suffering public to be spared the disruptions of a strike. Yet the “solution” imposed was forced labor, pure and simple; the workers were coerced, against their will, into going back to work. There is no moral excuse, in a society claiming to be opposed to slavery and in a country which has outlawed involuntary servitude, for any legal or judicial action prohibiting strikes—or jailing union leaders who fail to comply. Slavery is all too often more convenient for the slavemasters.
Of course, the point of much of Marxism is that the “free” employment is actually a form of forced labor. The point I take from Mezzadra’s remarks on Boutang is that the ostensible freedom of waged labor is less important than many Marxists make it out to be, and that more nakedly forced labor is less exceptional than it’s taken for.
(Note to self, see also this and this by Caffentzis, and this interview with Moulier-Boutang. Also this.)
I think one problem with a lot of Marxist analysis of these sort of situation suffers from a lack of engagement with legal theory in general. Staughton Lynd’s work is fairly interesting and doesn’t suffer so much in this regard, but really everyone should read Pashukanis.
Comment by Rob — June 8, 2006 @ 10:08 pm
hi Rob,
Do you have a decent starter Pashakunis text you’d recommend?
I’m pretty taken with historical accounts of the operations of contracts, labor law and the relevant gov’t administrative bodies, and unions in the US labor movement. Martin Glaberman and Stan Weir both have a lot to say in this in what I’ve read of them, and it’s consonant with the experience of friends of mine in unionized shops.
On organization oriented toward resorting to grievance procedures rather than shopfloor action is based on taking the noninterruption of production (so-called labor peace) as a good. Leaving aside speculations about effectivity here, this contributes to disaggregation of shopfloor organization and power, as well as the constitution of a group of people who have some measure of power because of their knowledge of the contract and relevant law, as well as decision making power granted in/over the process (which grievance to pursue, etc).
Beyond that, I’m not familiar with the stuff you’re referencing. I’ve just glanced at your blog and it looks good. I’ll have a more in depth look around later and see if I have anything I can ask you about.
take care,
Nate
Comment by Nate — June 8, 2006 @ 10:57 pm