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341. Why Project Labor Agreements Are Not in the Public Interest

Author:
David G. Tuerck
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Project labor agreements (PLAs) are agreements between owners of construction projects and construction unions, under which firms retained to work on a construction project must enter into collective bargaining with the unions, hire workers through union hiring halls, and pay union wages and benefits. Contractors must operate, in effect, as union contractors, whether they ordinarily use union labor or not. Workers must usually pay union dues whether they belong to a union or not.
Topic:
Labor Issues

342. Unions and Discrimination

Author:
Paul Moreno
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The claim that organized labor has been a force for racial egalitarianism can only be called a myth. It is one of the many myths that pro-union historians have perpetuated—similar to those, for example, that unorganized workers suffered from an “inequality of bar- gaining power” (Reynolds 1991), that strikes are conflicts between employers and employees rather than between different groups of employees, or that violence was more often employed against than by unions (Thieblot and Haggard 1983). Perhaps the greatest myth of all is that organized labor is good for workers generally. In fact, unions transfer income from the unorganized to the organized, and depress total income to such a degree that even organized workers are poorer (Vedder and Gallaway 2002).

343. Public Sector Unions and the Rising Costs of Employee Compensation

Author:
Chris Edwards
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Public sector compensation is becoming a high-profile policy issue. While private sector wages and benefits have stagnated during the recession, many governments continue to increase compensation for public sector workers. At the same time, there are growing concerns about huge underfunding in public sector retirement plans across the nation.
Political Geography:
United States

344. Unions and the Decline of U.S. Cities

Author:
Stephen J. K. Walters
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The usual suspects in the tragic demise of many of America's core cities are well known. For decades, scholars, politicians, and pundits have condemned the racism that led whites to flee diverse urban populations after World War II, sneered at Americans' vulgar affection for cars and expansive lawns, criticized policies that encouraged us to indulge these tastes, and blamed capitalist greed and unwhole- some technological change for the deindustrialization that has wrecked urban labor markets.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
United States and America

345. Prevailing Wage Laws: Public Interest or Special Interest Legislation?

Author:
George C. Leef
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The public policy of the United States is broadly in favor of competition. Our antitrust laws are premised on the idea that in the absence of such legislation private interests would seek to create monopolies, fix prices, restrain trade, and stifle competition. Moreover, the federal government, as well as the states and municipalities, has laws mandating competitive bidding on government contracts to guard the public against "sweetheart deals" that squander tax dollars. Open competition, in fact, is usually the undoing of those conspiracies against the public that Adam Smith saw as so prevalent.
Political Geography:
United States

346. The Effects of Teachers Unions on American Education

Author:
Andrew J. Coulson
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Public school employee unions are politically partisan and polarizing institutions. Of the National Education Association's $30 million in federal campaign contributions since 1990, 93 percent has gone to Democrats or the Democratic Party. Of the $26 million in federal campaign contributions by the American Federation of Teachers, 99 percent has gone to Democrats or the Democratic Party (Center for Responsive Politics 2009). Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, conservatives and Republicans have often accused these unions of simultaneously raising the cost and lowering the quality of American public schools. Many advocates of charter schools, vouchers, and education tax credits have cited union political influence as the greatest impediment to their chosen reforms. But in academic circles, scholars have sometimes disagreed on the unions' impact on wages and educational productivity. The purpose of the present review is to summarize, and attempt to reconcile, the empirical research on the actual impact teachers unions have on American education.
Topic:
Education and Reform
Political Geography:
America

347. Right-to-Work Laws: Liberty, Prosperity, and Quality of Life

Author:
Richard Vedder
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The most essential ingredient embodied in the liberty championed by the classical liberal writers of the Enlightenment and beyond is individual choice and right of expression—the right of persons to say what they think, decide for themselves what groups that want to join, what religion that want to profess, what person they want to marry, what goods they want to buy or sell, and what persons they want to represent them where necessity requires collective decision making. One important economic dimension of individual liberty is the right to sell one's labor services without attenuation—that is, without limits on the terms of the agreement (e.g., wage rates and hours of work), or who will represent the worker in reaching those terms.
Political Geography:
United States

348. Unions, Protectionism, and U.S. Competitiveness

Author:
Daniel Griswold
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In the past three decades, labor union leaders have emerged as among the chief critics of trade liberalization, while the economic evidence has grown that labor unions compromise the ability of American companies to compete in global markets.
Political Geography:
United States and America

349. Unions, the High-Wage Doctrine, and Employment

Author:
Lowell E. Gallaway
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In the more than 200 years in which formal organizations of workers (labor unions) have existed in the United States, there have been three distinct eras of policy toward them. Initially, in the late 18th and early 19th century, they were regarded as associations that came under the purview of the English common-law doctrine of conspiracy— that is, their very existence could be considered illegal, regardless of the objectives of the group.
Political Geography:
United States

350. Toward a Free-Market Union Law

Author:
Charles W. Baird
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
F. A. Hayek and W. H. Hutt wrote extensively about the malign economic and social effects of the special privileges and immunities granted by governments to labor unions, but they wrote much less about what a free-market unionism might look like. They argued that all legislation that has conferred coercive powers on unions should be repealed, but they did not propose any specific free-market union legislation to take its place. Perhaps they thought that if all offending legislation were repealed there would be no need for any union-specific legislation. The common law of property, contract, and tort would suffice. Nevertheless, it is difficult in American politics to replace something with nothing. Therefore, I think it is useful, albeit constructivist, to propose a free-market alternative to the Norris- LaGuardia Act of 1932 (NLA) and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 as amended in 1947 (NLRA). Perhaps the chief value of such a proposal is to make explicit what the ordinary law of property, contract and tort implies for the labor market and the role of unions therein. New Zealand's 1991 Employment Contracts Act (ECA) is a good, but imperfect, guide in this endeavor.
Topic:
Law
Political Geography:
America and New Zealand