The Dunlop Report and the Future of Labor Law Reform
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Description
America's labor laws are based on a view of the employment relationship that emphasizes the conflict of interest between labor and capital. The advancement of labor's welfare in the distributional struggle was thought to require institutional guarantees of autonomous organizations capable of forming alliances across firms and pressing disagreements through sustained work stoppages. At one time the model of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA or Wagner Act) and the Railway Labor Act of 1926 (a measure applicable only to the railroad and airline industries) reflected the preferences of workers in traditional crafts and mass production industries who saw no common interest with their employers. The unions' objectives also could accommodate the needs of companies for clear lines of authority between supervision and production, and assurances that hikes in labor costs would be imposed on all competitor firms. The model no longer works. From a highpoint in the mid-1950s—when unions represented over 35 percent of workers in private firms, influenced the terms that had to be paid non-union workers to avoid unionization, and effectively imposed their "master" agreements across entire product markets—the unionization rate has plummeted to under 12 percent of the private sector workforce. It is likely to fall even further.
Source Publication
Contemporary Issues in Labor and Employment Law: Proceedings of the New York University 48th Annual National Conference on Labor
Source Editors/Authors
Bruno Stein
Publication Date
1996
Recommended Citation
Estreicher, Samuel, "The Dunlop Report and the Future of Labor Law Reform" (1996). Faculty Chapters. 474.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/474
