From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 7:39 AM
To: Franklin Schmidt
Cc: LPSM-Discuss@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [LPSM-Discuss] Re: Equality, Emotional Distress, Government
as Super-Corporation, etc.


> Franklin Schmidt [mailto:fschmidt@digdb.com] wrote:
> 
> Norris-La Guardia Act from 1932.  What it did was to 
> eliminate government involvement in strikes by barring 
> the judicial system from intervening.

Norris - La Guardia exempted secondary labor boycotts from 
antitrust laws, and it robbed employers of access to judicial
enforcement of certain provisions (like no-strike and
no-unionization) of contracts between consenting adults.
I'd hardly call enforcement of contracts and antitrust law
"intervening".

> [..] labor unions are very much a free market creation

Only if you consider collusion and monopoly part of a free market.
Unions have been exempt from antitrust laws since the Clayton Act
of 1914.

> What has caused today's unions to lose power?
> The government, of course.

Reagan's enforcement of the air traffic controller's no-strike
clause is often cited as part of the answer, but much more important
have been the shift of jobs from manufacturing to service and
the competition from overseas labor not under the monopoly
control of American unions.

Brian Holtz
http://humanknowledge.net