GOP should use Reagan’s approach with unions

theapenanews ^ | 05/28/2025 | Joseph G. Lehman

[ChicagoConservative27]

Republicans are falling into a familiar trap. From President Trump to Vice President JD Vance to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a growing number of party leaders have come to believe that coercive labor unions are a permanent part of American politics, so the Republicans might as well forge an uneasy truce if not an outright alliance with them.

To build that bridge, Hawley released his first of several promised pro-union bills in early March. The thinking seems to be: If labor unions are here to stay, why not put political expediency ahead of deeply held Republican principles like worker freedom and equal opportunity?

Fifty years ago, Republicans made a similar argument about another kind of union — the Soviet variety. In the mid-1970s, Republican leaders, along with the Democratic Party and virtually the entire foreign policy establishment, assumed the Soviet Union was here to stay. Two successive Republican presidents — Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford — pursued a policy of détente with a coercive regime that rejected American principles and was actively working toward America’s destruction. What other choice did they have, if the Soviet Union wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon?

[ChicagoConservative27]

Is Joseph right?

[x]

No, he may even be an idiot. Reagan fired the air traffic controllers because they broke a no-strike agreement. As a former union head, Reagan wasn’t anti-union.

[DIRTYSECRET]

Trump got along with them when the mob was running it.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Generally, yes, although it would have been nice had he explained what was in the "pro-union" bills being introduced by Hawley.

Unions and union membership should enjoy no legal protections, nor any legal penalties.

[Bruce Campbells Chin]

Okay, having now read a summary of the relevant legislation, Joseph is 100% right, and Hawley dead wrong. What he's proposing is an absolute travesty. In essence, it forces companies into binding arbitration for a first contract, meaning that some mediator will have the power to impose a first contract that the company will be forced to accept. It is horrendous.

At that isn't my interpretation -- that's how Hawley describes his legislation on his own website:

https://www.hawley.senate.gov/new-hawley-legislation-to-speed-up-labor-contracts-earns-teamsters-endorsement-bipartisan-support/

In fact, it's sufficiently horrible that I'm going to start a thread on it.

[ChicagoConservative27]

Thanks for sharing

[Secret Agent Man]

The GOP should drop out of the Uniparty and be the GOP again. You know, so they can actually support the GOP President...?

[ansel12]

“”””Reagan wasn’t anti-union.””””

He knew what he was doing and he broke the iron-fisted power of the unions.