UNION POWERS AND WORKERS' RIGHTS

Authors

Clyde W. Summers, University of Buffalo School of LawFollow

Abstract

The plight of the Highland group is not the product of labor strife, but of collective bargaining; not of employer discrimination, but of union power. It symbolizes in an extreme form the potential fate of an individual worker within the structure of unionization and collective bargaining. It sharply reminds us that contracts apply to workers, and that unions consist of members. It warns us that we must not become so obsessed with the glamor of studying mass action that we ignore the fate of those who make up the mass and in whose name the action is taken.

Such cases as the Trailmobile case compel us to give careful attention and serious study to the place of the individual within our collective bargaining system. Since the union represents the worker's interests, and is designated as his spokesman, this is primarily a problem of the relationship of the union to the individual worker. In considering this problem, it will be helpful to view the relationship in two different lights: first, the power of the union to affect or regulate the life of the individual; and second, the right of the individual to control or limit the union's exercise of that power.

Recommended Citation

Clyde W. Summers, UNION POWERS AND WORKERS' RIGHTS, 49 Mich. L. Rev. 805 (1951).
Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol49/iss6/3