Corker noted in the interview he had been “assured” that a rejection of unionization would reward labor by sending new work to the plant. Crafty jargon from another Big Government conservative. Not only was this statement denied by VW, but now, because there is no union, the private company very well may halt expansion in the south.

The Chattanooga confrontation boils down to nothing but politics. Tennessee is already a “Right to Work” state, so if workers decided to join the UAW no employee would have had to join the union. Non-union workers at the plant would have avoided union dues (but received the benefits negotiated on their behalf by organized labor). There was no threat to conservative “Right to Work” laws, but Tennessee Republicans still meddled in the affairs of a private institution — because they loathe organized labor.

This has big implications for labor organizing in Tennessee. I am a Tennessean and a card-carrying member of United Campus Workers – Communication Workers of America (UCW-CWA), Tennessee’s higher education union. Tennessee Republicans do not believe I have the right to free association or to negotiate the conditions of my labor, and they will use their political clout to ensure I can’t. Let’s examine just what this means.

I am not endorsing the UAW or even the UCW-CWA. Big union, just as big business and big government, has its issues. However, I am endorsing voluntary association.

If workers come together to negotiate contracts with their employers that is nothing but the libertarian principle of freedom of association. If the bargaining process yields a voluntary contract between management and labor then what we have is yet another example of free association. This is simply co-operation in the work place. It is big government laws that tip the scale in favor of one group over another that are the problem. In Tennessee, “Right to Work” laws benefit capital at the expense of labor.

Republicans, by flexing their big government muscle, seek restrictions on voluntary transactions within a private company. They work to crush the very principle of free association. Regardless of how workers want to organize it is none of their business.

In liberty, freedom of association and voluntary contracts are the rule. The libertarian is not concerned with the rights of government — conservative or liberal, federal or state. The libertarian is concerned with individual rights — including the right to organize. Government laws restrict competition in the market and they restrict democracy on the shop floor. Without big government, labor would be liberated — free to smash government imposed privilege. Without big government, and moving beyond bossism, unions would once again dedicate their efforts to advancing the working class. It is government’s failure to respect voluntary contract, to leave the market alone, that is the real story of Chattanooga.

The solution is to smash the structures of big government that privilege one class over another in the first place. It’s not about politics or your next election, folks, it’s about free association.

Walter Block presumably identifies unionism with state or government coercion. This ahistorical take ignores the fact that labor unions have often had an adversarial relationship with the state or government. It wasn’t until the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 that unions received any government or state protection/recognition. Not to mention that government or the state has frequently suppressed unions throughout American history. Some notable examples are the Homestead Strike of 1892, Pullman Strike of 1894, and the Colorado Labor Wars of 1903.

In addition to the above, the courts interpreted labor unionism as a violation of anti-trust law until the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914. Other legal restraints are contained in the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Not to mention that the National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act itself had issues. As Kevin Carson explains:

“This attitude was at the root of the Taylorist/Fordist system, in which the labor bureaucrats agreed to let management manage, so long as labor got an adequate share of the pie. (25) Such a social contract was most emphatically in the interests of large corporations. The sitdown movement in the auto industry and the organizing strikes among West coast longshoremen were virtual revolutions among rank and file workers on the shop floor. In many cases, they were turning into regional general strikes. The Wagner Act domesticated this revolution and brought it under the control of professional labor bureaucrats.”

Block never mentions any of this history.

The final aspect to be discussed is whether unionism is compatible with the normative philosophical principles of libertarianism. An emphatic yes is the answer. Left-libertarian market anarchist unionism involves a voluntary association of free and equal workers working together for their freedom from arbitrary employer power. Voluntary association and freedom are core libertarian principles. They most emphatically apply to the working class.