Rights Not Interests: Resolving Value Clashes under the National Labor Relations Act by James A. Gross

The proportion of workers in the United States represented by a union in the private sector is now lower than before the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was passed. Since the mid-1970s, we have watched a steady decline of the labor movement that has lately accelerated, arguably to a collapse. The causes of this collapse are many — changes in our economy from a predominantly industrial character to a service-oriented character; evolving business models, particularly the fissuring of those models, that make traditional organizing strategies ineffective; and US trade policy that puts tremendous downward pressure on wages for American workers. There also is a set of causes that are more clearly intrinsic to the National Labor Relations Act — weaknesses there from enactment and others introduced over the years. Professor James A. Gross has produced some of the most insightful and...