The Heritage Foundation has just put up an interesting — if at times confusing — new web memo on possible alternatives to compulsory unionization. One of the more salient points the author raises is that the legislation governing workplace relations – the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) – is almost entirely obsolete. Times have changed since 1935 (the year the bill was first drafted), and the workplace now emphasizes cooperation over confrontation between management and labor:

That economy no longer exists. Businesses today rely on feedback and communication from employees. Employers do not simply give top-down orders, but incorporate bottom-up communication and employee discretion. The line between workers and management has increasingly blurred, and most workers want cooperative—not adversarial—relations with their employers.

Unfortunately, Big Labor hasn’t changed with the times. If anything, union officials are promoting an increasingly adversarial relationship with management that relies on hate-the-boss rhetoric, vicious corporate campaigns, coercive card-check organizing drives, and scurious lawsuits to force companies to herd their employees into forced-dues-paying union collectives.

Would a more cooperative approach benefit employees? According to the memo, alternatives to the current system is certainly popular with American workers:

The fact that few workers want to join traditional unions does not mean that they do not want a voice in workplace relations. Surveys show that workers want to participate in decisions in the workplace and want to be heard by their supervisors, but they do not want hostile relations with management.

Ultimately, the policy prescriptions put forth in the web memo are unfortunately vague on the vital isues of compulsory union dues and monopoly bargaining.

If Heritage’s proposed reforms eliminate forced dues, monopoly bargaining, or both, then they would be a step forward for employee rights. However, if the "reforms" do nothing to dismantle these extraordinary monopoly union privileges and make unionism more voluntary, then it is hard to see how trying to add "employee involvement" programs to the NLRA would be anything other than a gigantic waste of time and resources.