In today’s New York Post law professor Richard Epstein writes goes after the EFCA in one of the best treatments of the issue I’ve read. Epstein – who hails from University of Chicago where Obama once taught – is one of the best legal thinkers in our country and has written some terrific articles and books on labor and employment law issues over the years. His book Simple Rules is one of my all time favorites.
Epstein’s main argument is that the EFCA will do to labor markets what the sub-prime lending crisis has done to our financial markets. He writes this about the apples to oranges comparison unions often make about mandatory arbitration working in public sector units:
And private businesses don’t operate the same kinds of protected niches as public unions – they face real competition. The employer groups that I’ve represented know full well any private firm that succumbs to unionization won’t be strong enough to survive adversity or nimble enough to advance. Yet EFCA would enable labor unions to muscle their way into an involuntary partnership with the firm’s owners.
So a future President Obama will face a hard choice: Show abject fealty to the labor unions, which have done so much to promote his candidacy. Or avoid decimating the small businesses he has promised to help.
This op-ed highlights the much-less publicized – and much more damaging – part of the the EFCA, the mandatory arbitration provisions. This massive government intervention into American labor markets will have a devastating impact on an economy already headed into a tough recession. I only hope that Obama takes his former U of C colleague’s advice; however, I’m guessing Mr. Epstein is not going to be invited to the White House to discuss his concerns.
