Where in the Constitution is collective bargaining a right/

1. 59

   NEWSHAWKERposted 13 years ago

   Where in the Constitution is collective bargaining a right/
   
   Where in the Constitution is Collective Bargaining a "Right" ? It is a law passed by a legislative body, subject to repeal if the legislative body is changed after an election! Elections have consequences!

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2. 70

   Ralph Deedsposted 13 years ago

   That's true. The right to organize and bargain collectively was established by the Wagner Act in 1935. It's been amended twice but is not likely to be repealed.
   
   TIME TO NULLIFY THE WAGNER ACT? 
   
   With the encouragement of big money corporate interests, legislatures and governors in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan are using the pretext of budget shortfalls in their efforts to suppress the remnants of union political opposition and nullify the rights of government and private sector employees to organize and bargain collectively. Clearly these actions in the public and private sector are not wise public policy at a time of stagnating wages and widening income disparity. Slashing the budget of the NLRB and passing state laws gutting the right of government employees to bargain undermines a process for resolving workplace issues through decentralized, orderly and private processes that have served the country well for three-quarters of a century. 2011 is not the time to nullify the Wagner Act.
   
   In 1935 the Wagner Act established the legal right for workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employers over wages, hours and working conditions. The National Labor Relations Board was established to implement the Act and assure the workers’ new collective bargaining rights decreed by the Congress. Many considered these rights to be a key element in adapting an agrarian, free enterprise society to the industrial age and providing a democratic alternative to the Marxist model then being advocated by many for industrial societies throughout the world. Now, some in Congress and in several state houses, through legislative and budgetary processes, are trying to nullify the rights conferred by the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) seventy-six years ago.
   
   Slashing the budget of the NLRB and passing state laws gutting the right of government employees to bargain undermines a process for resolving workplace issues through decentralized, orderly and private processes that have served the country well for three-quarters of a century. 2011 is not the time to nullify the Wagner Act. Clearly these efforts in the public and private sector are not wise public policy at a time of stagnating wages and widening income disparity. 2011 is not the time to nullify the Wagner Act.

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3. 80

   Wayne Brownposted 13 years ago

   In the basic premise of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers assumed that man possessed certain inalienable rights granted by God thus incapable of being changed by man.  Those include the rights of liberty, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness.  Within those rights, lies man collective bargaining rights.  If you don't like your work or your pay, you are free to go elsewhere and pursue a new level of happiness and pay without reperscussions. It's that simple especially in today's world.  Unions have long since served their purpose in terms of ridding the USA of poor working conditions or pay.  In fact, they have gone too far the other way and created workers who are no longer competitive for the jobs to be done.  They are basically creating their own destiny by driving American business outside its own borders for survival in the marketplace.  At the same time, within our God granted rights, is the freedom to organize in pursuit of our happiness and many still believe that is the way to go although it seems to be driven by either tradition or force in most cases.  WB

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4. 0

   Old Empresarioposted 13 years ago

   I'm all for collective bargaining in the private sector. But I am against government workers who live off our taxes rising up against their democratically-elected leaders. Call me crazy. Governors and elected officials may be scumbags, but they are elected leaders. The bureaucracies under them are their subordinates, like it or not. If the army rose up against its leaders, it would be called a mutiny. So what is this? I don't know if Americans realize this, but the police have unions as well. If we give legitimacy to civilian government employee unions, what will keep the armed police from rising up against their leaders when the time comes to make cuts in law enforcement? Assassinated politicians? Violence? If anyone is going to rise up against the government, let it be we the people. If the government bureaucracies rise up against the government, we are looknig at dictatorship. I don't think education should be cut. But the fact that the elected leaders have chosen to do so has less gravity than subordinates within the government bossing around politicians.

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