| Is the Right To Organize Unconstitutional? |
| Aron Fischer [View as PDF] |
|
113 Yale L.J. 1999 (2004) Waremart Foods v. NLRB, 354 F.3d 870 (D.C. Cir. 2004). Do union organizers have the right to organize on private property? As far as federal law is concerned, the answer to that question is clear. Employee organizers have broad rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA); nonemployee union organizers have virtually none. Until a recent decision by the D.C. Circuit, however, there was little reason to believe that federal law, much less the Constitution, prevented states from granting workplace access rights to nonemployee organizers. While the issue had not been squarely addressed, it seemed safe to assume that state right-to-organize laws were the type of economic regulation subject to highly deferential constitutional review since the end of the Lochner era. |