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Title: The Unbundled Union: Politics Without Collective Bargaining

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2013

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Abstract: Public policy in the United States is disproportionately responsive to the wealthy, and the traditional response to this problem, campaign finance regulation, has failed. As students of politics have long recognized, however, political influence flows not only from wealth but also from organization, a form of political power open to all income groups. Accordingly, as this Essay argues, a promising alternative to campaign finance regulations is legal interventions designed to facilitate political organizing by the poor and middle class. To date, the most important legal intervention of this kind has been labor law, and the labor union has been the central vehicle for this type of organizing. But the labor union as a political-organizational vehicle suffers a fundamental flaw: unions bundle political organization with collective bargaining, a highly contested form of economic organization. As a result, opposition to collective bargaining impedes unions' ability to serve as a political-organizing vehicle for lower- and middle-income groups.

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Authors: Sachs, Benjamin I.

Periodical (Full): The Yale law journal

Issue: 1

Volume: 123

Pages: 148-207

Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Other, Poverty and Welfare

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