Collective bargaining is not a right.

Neo-fascist scripture

Neither is life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

Unless you live in a culture which proclaims them as rights under a government which declares them so and upholds them as rights. 

It is a matter of the scripture of neo-fascism, which conservatism in America has descended into, that laborers have no rights in the workplace, where their existence and terms of life are at the total discretion of their employers.  

That view enjoys widespread currency in fascist America, but does not prevail in the rest of the developed world.  Labor unions have been the scourge of dictators, even those such as Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who shares much in common with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker on that point.  Chavez claims that he has made Venezuela one of the best places in the world to be a worker, but his government has  has systematically tampered with workers' rights and undercut established labor unions while favoring new, parallel unions that support the Chavez agenda.  While the Chavez strategy is different, his and Walker's objectives are to remove the workers from any influence in the market and make them obedient to some managerial entity. 

As a direct experience of World War II and the fight with fascism, the United Nations took on as its primary task a Universal Declaration of Human Rights as part of its International Bill of Rights.  Article 23 states: "Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests."  And that confers the right to collectively bargain, as  specified by the International Labour Organization's Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work which defines the "freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining" as an essential right of workers.

This insistence on workers as equal beings who have rights is what the conservative movement holds against the U.N.  

A further endorsement of those rights is expressed by a 2007 opinion of the Canadian Supreme Court:  

The right to bargain collectively with an employer enhances the human dignity, liberty and autonomy of workers by giving them the opportunity to influence the establishment of workplace rules and thereby gain some control over a major aspect of their lives, namely their work... Collective bargaining is not simply an instrument for pursuing external ends…rather [it] is intrinsically valuable as an experience in self-government... Collective bargaining permits workers to achieve a form of workplace democracy and to ensure the rule of law in the workplace. Workers gain a voice to influence the establishment of rules that control a major aspect of their lives.

But, of course, the Canadians with their universal health care and other socialist practices are in the same Marxist category with the U.N.  They don't understand that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is only for the managing class.  Let's get back to our Constitutional foundations and give the vote only to white, male property owners, whose property includes slaves, and take this nation back and get it on track.  


Strict construction, here we come.