Derailing Union Democracy : Why Deregulation Would Be a Mistake

This article is a response to Prof. Samuel Estreicher’s article, Deregulating Union Democracy, 21 J. LAB. RES. 247 (2000). It argues against Estreicher’s call for the deregulation of internal union affairs by repealing the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 on several grounds. First, it disputes some of Estreicher’s basic assumptions about the nature and effectiveness of union democracy legislation, in part because Estreicher views unions strictly as economic entities and overlooks their important political and social functions, and in part because he is mistaken when he dismisses the current scheme of regulating internal union affairs as completely ineffectual. Second, the article criticizes Estreicher’s proposal for new and different ways of providing workplace representation, arguing that without democratic safeguards such as protection for the freedom of speech of workers represented under these new forms of workplace representation, access to information, and effective protection against retaliation, the employee voting opportunities on which Estreicher’s plan is based would provide the appearance of democracy without the reality