Janus Decision Reveals Two-Faced Nature of Collective Bargaining Law

The case of Janus v. A.F.S.C.M.E. Council 31 could not possibly have been named with any more poetic irony than it was. That's because Janus reveals the two-faced nature of federal labor laws, and the two-faced nature of the manner in which Democrats and Republicans talk about those laws.

The Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 in favor of the plaintiff, Illinois state employee Mark Janus, against the defendant, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31. The court's decision ends compulsory "fair share" fees for public sector workers, meaning that a government employee no longer has to pay dues to the union which is obligated to represent them, if that employee does not wish to be a member of that union.

Critics of the decision argue that it turns the whole set of people on government payroll into an effective "Right to Work" system. Right to Work laws, now enforced in 28 states, prohibit "union shop" and "closed shop" union security agreements; contracts between unions and management which, respectively, require employees to join a union (union shop) or the union (closed shop).

Critics also suggest that Right to Work laws, and the Janus decision, enable "free riders" to take advantage of being represented by unions, without having to pay anything. But what critics of Janus and Right to Work laws miss, however, is that, since the Wagner Act (the National Labor Relations Act of 1935), three quarters of the states have begun to allow public sector unions to engage in collective bargaining, emulating the Wagner Act (which pertains to employees in the private sector).

The Wagner Act required all employees in a private sector workplace (or bargaining unit) to be represented by the union receiving the majority vote in a union election, in all unions affiliated with the National Labor Relations Board (which the Wagner Act created).

So 80-year-old federal labor law - the Wagner Act / N.L.R.A. of 1935, signed into law by F.D.R., a Democrat - is the reason that there are free-riding workers who receive representation but don't pay for what they receive.

Remember, "free riders" are workers whom do not consent to be represented by "their union" (which they don't pay for). Most "free riding" workers don't want to pay for those union benefits; either because they don't feel that those benefits are adequate or otherwise appropriate, or because they don't want to settle for those benefits or settle for the union in charge.

These are people who might even want to form their own union. However, the union in charge, if affiliated with the N.L.R.B., would probably appeal to the N.L.R.B., and sue the smaller union, seeking to put it out of business for "cutting in on their action" by competing against the monopoly wielded by the union which won the legal right to represent workers through winning a union election.

The notion that government is a business - and an ordinary actor that can behave anywhere nearly as fairly as an enterprise that can actually go out of business - is contributing and the misguided idea that public and private sector union policy ought to look more or less the same. It is ironic that - after progressive government entered labor policy in order to counteract the power of monopolies, bust the trusts, and ensure competition - government is now enabling the anti-competitive and monopolistic behavior of unions. But it should not come as unexpected.

The lack of a clear delineation in the law between private property and enterprises offering public accommodations, and the number of forms of public assistance to ostensibly private enterprise, only serve to further complicate this blurring of public sector collective bargaining policy together with private sector policy.

If the Janus decision seems wise, then, in my opinion, it is only because it reveals the hypocrisy of the components of the law which serves as the underlying assumption upon which the foundation of misguided labor law rests.

This is to say that it reveals the hypocrisy of the "majority unionism" (unionism by majority vote) and "compulsory unionism" (extension of union representation through legal decree) through which the Wagner Act created the problem at hand; namely, the free rider problem, which Right to Work laws and the Janus decision aim to solve, but which merely serve as bandages upon the problem.

But to say that Right to Work laws and the Janus decision serve as "bandages" is an insult to bandages; they actually create new problems on top of the old ones, adding insult to injury. Right to Work laws create new problems which weren't there before, by limiting the right of unions and businesses to freely engage in contract, and have their contracts honored by the government. Now, in the aftermath the Janus decision, the Supreme Court has taken credit for taking action, when in reality it has merely refused to redress an already existing problem; that non-consenting private sector employees in most states receive union representation which they don't think benefits them.

And that will continue to be a contentious issue, whether employees represented by a union are paying for those benefits or not.

Written on June 27th and 28th, 2018

Published on June 28th, 2018

Click the following link to read an speech for the 2018 Bughouse Debates,

which was based on this article:

http://aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2018/07/janus-decision-reveals-two-faced-nature.html

Anarcho-Capitalist Incels

     “AnCap incels” are “involuntarily celibate” Anarcho-capitalists; that is, radically pro-private property individuals who believe themselves to be anarchists, and feel that they have been made celibate against their will (involuntarily).

     The only reason that male heterosexual AnCap incels are not socialists is that they know socialists would not "collectivize the means of reproduction" - as they often joke, and secretly hope - in addition to collectivizing the means of production (factories, farms, factory farms, etc.).

     They assume that their enemies, the socialists, view everything as a resource to be distributed equitably among the people, and also that the socialists consider women "things" like AnCap incels consider them. But they're wrong to assume these things; they make these assumptions due to projection and transference, in hopes that they'll find a socialist who will admit a desire to collectivize or redistribute access to (or ownership of) women.

     If socialists delivered on this “equitable distribution of reproduction” – the AnCap incels' crucial selling point - and assigned a mate (read: sex slave) to each "involuntarily celibate" person (read: person who isn't getting laid but thinks they're entitled to sex), then these AnCap incels would start calling themselves socialists.

     In truth, AnCap incels are traitors to the cause of the free market, because they refuse to allow themselves to be subjected to the ordinary forces of the so-called “dating market” or “sexual marketplace” . That is, they refuse to subject themselves to the effects which arise when you're dog-dick ugly and you can't stop talking shit about people who aren't cis men; the demand of you plummets, and since supply change because there's only one of you, your value goes down too.

     AnCaps are not anarchists, because they hate this state, but fantasize about essentially having their own personal state. They want to replicate all the worst aspects of statism (exclusivity, monopoly, terrritorialism, and legitimate violence) at a microcosmic scale on their own property. AnCaps want to own land and businesses for the specific purpose of excluding people, or else killing people whom they can trick into accidentally trespassing, or overstaying their welcome, on their property. And, if inviting them on, then only in order to interfere with their freedom of travel, and trick them into selling their labor, in order to reap profit at their expense while there. Additionally, sometimes, even to destroy the land for fun, or otherwise ruin it or make it unusable for others (thus destroying something he didn't create).

     AnCap incels are traitors to both socialism and the free market. Real anarchists don't hate communists; they help them shoot fascists. Real anarchists don't treat women as property, they help them shoot rapists, and help them pour acid over half of their family for trying to marry them off to an ugly old incel relative.

     Sex and physical affection are arguably human needs, but anyone who refuses to admit that being born with any human need doesn't obligate any particular person to fulfill that need for someone, is mistaken. To argue otherwise is to suggest that human beings and their bodies are nothing more than dead resources which should be considered up for allocation and distribution according to the whims of the market, to be delivered to the doors of the highest bidders.

     What AnCap incels want borders on sex slavery, arranged marriage, and other forms of forced and coerced sexual relationships. AnCap incels should not be having sex with anybody, much less encouraging legions of young male AnCap incels to go out and meet women, nor especially to attempt to teach anyone about political philosophy. Therefore, for the good of everyone whom AnCap incels want to have sex with, they should stay home, and very literally go fuck themselves, and no one else.

Addendum, Written on September 5th, 2019:

     The problem of incels "thinking all resources held in common, means equal distribution of women as the means of production", bizarrely enough, was dealt with in the actual Communist Manifesto, by Marx and Engels themselves. Granted, they were referring to the bourgeoisie thinking women would be equitably distributed, rather than "incels". But Marx and Engels' critique of the incels' ideas on this topic would probably be the same.

     As quoted from The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels write: "The bourgeois sees his wife [as] a mere instrument of production. He hears that the instruments of production are to be exploited in common, and, naturally, can come to no other conclusion that the lot of being common to all will likewise fall to the women. He has not even a suspicion that the real point aimed at is to do away with the status of women as mere instruments as production."

     Read the original text at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

Originally Written on June 13th, 2018

Edited, Expanded, and Published on June 26^th, 2018 and October 20th, 2020
Edited on September 8th, 2021

Addendum Written on September 5th, 2019