In the United States, labor unions still remain one of the main bulwarks capable of protecting workers’ rights, wages, and working conditions through collective bargaining. Their influential significance is primarily due to the support of the legislation. Nevertheless, at the turn of the 20th century, most unions adhered to the policy of voluntarism, that is, reliance on their own efforts and rejection of cooperation and receiving help from the federal government. Therefore, this paper aims at examining the hypothetical effect of voluntarism on labor unions, employees, and employers in the USA.
Voluntarism implies the labor variant of the laissez-faire approach, under which workers rely exceptionally on their trade unions that protect and promote their interests via collective bargaining, boycotts, and strikes. Herewith, any direct, open, and definite aid from the Government through administrative or legislative actions was dismissed. Considering the history of the American labor movement, the policy of voluntarism appeared to be highly ineffective. Before World War I, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) failed almost all battles for the workers’ rights in all critical industries, including steel, machinery, coal mining, and railroad (Saposs, 1954). Costly, disorganized, and contested strikes with irritated and exhausted workers could not bring tangible results.
Only after determined interventions of the Government in labor relations and the willingness of labor unions to collaborate with it produced significant shifts in working conditions. Respective administrative orders and sympathetic legislation, the National Recovery Act and the National Labor Relations Act, provided organized labor with immense stimulus and made it real power (Saposs, 1954). If labor unions decide to return to voluntarism, they take considerable risks to lose critical support and can transform into a minor player with no potent levers to influence labor relationships. Moreover, their membership would noticeably thin because of employees’ reluctance to join unions and existing members’ desire to interrupt cooperation. As a result, employees may also be in a disadvantaged position since they will not have any protection from employers’ unfair or malicious actions. On the contrary, managers would benefit from this situation because they would possess a vast space for various cunning decisions.
References
Saposs, D. J. (1954). Voluntarism in the American Labor Movement. Monthly Labor Review, 77(9), 967-971. Web.