Today is the Wisconsin recall election. If Republican governor Scott Walker prevails, so will conservatives, since his reforms of collective bargaining will survive, and he shall have curbed some of the worst excesses of the American labor movement.
There have been, and still are, public benefits to unionism. Trade unions remain a way for master craftsmen to protect their skills from cut-rate competitors, and offer customers a credible guarantee that the job will be top-notch. Industrial unions are now an outdated mode of employer-employee relations, but they were once a way for the working class to renegotiate their share of the national surplus during the industrial revolution, and they contributed to the middle class that emerged in the postwar era.
![[THURS 10AM] Faster Labor Contracts Act would silence workers’ voices and empower bureaucrats](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/labor-unions-e1779824754421.jpg?w=600)
