A warning to employers that US NLRB labor agency has changed the rules governing formation of unions to be easier for workers and harder for employers to oppose

We tend to forget that our labor laws were meant to be a compromise. Owners and bosses have always complained about having to recognize unions, and they've fought tooth and nail against any effort to get unions recognized. But we tend to forget that the kind of unions that workers are fighting for ARE a compromise between the rights of labor and owners. I've heard plenty of libertarian types ask why companies should be required to recognize unions. But in doing so we forget that our labor law was meant as a compromise, requiring compromise on the part of both workers and owners.

Our form of union organizing is meant to be rather boring and bureaucratic. It's meant to produce as little chaos as possible while still providing a means for workers to collectively bargain. For example, companies are required to recognize unions, but restrictions are also placed on union organizers. Unions members aren't allowed to discriminate against employees that aren't members of the union (seek to get them fired, not promoted, etc.) Unions aren't allowed to physically prevent scab workers from entering workplaces during strikes (such as locking the doors or chaining themselves to door handles.)

There are all sorts of strike tactics that are also illegal. For example, slowdown strikes are not protected by the NLRB. A slowdown strike is where, without necessarily even declaring they are on strike, employees just deliberately work much slower than normal. There are also restrictions on the timing, required notice, etc. There are also restrictions on secondary striking. For example, maybe you work at a factory that is a primary supplier for another company. Your company is unionized, but the other isn't. A secondary strike would be where your factory goes on strike to force the other factory to recognize your union.

In short, there are many unprotected or even outright illegal tactics that unions could use and did use before modern labor laws were established. The owners fought hard against unions for over a century leading up to the 1930s-1940s. And this resulted in the labor movement becoming ever more radical. Especially at the height of the Depression, a lot of leaders were legitimately worried about a Soviet-style outright workers' revolution. After a century of suppression of labor rights, that's what we were on the verge of; that's how radical things had gotten.

Modern labor law was meant to be a compromise between these things. On one extreme you had companies that wanted to never have to recognize a union, complete laissez-faire. On the other you had radical union organizers that argued that any action short of or even including outright violence should be legal. Forget collective bargaining; they wanted the freedom to hold so many strikes and worker actions that eventually the entire economy would be forced over to co-ops. (For example, imagine a world where Amazon somehow became completely taken over by a radical union. And imagine they then went on strike until Amazon became a worker co-op, and then in turn they refused to stock goods from any business that also wasn't a co-op. In theory with enough worker action you literally can turn the whole economy into employee-owned companies.)

Companies love to complain about unions. Owners and bosses love to complain about the evils of big government and the unfairness of being forced to recognize unions. But in doing so, they forget the central compromise of American labor law. The compromise is not just that American workers get labor rights. Rather, workers gain the right to form a very calm, orderly, and bureaucratic form of union. They get enough labor rights to lobby for their own pay and benefits, but their actions are restricted enough that they can't, through labor action alone, ever really threaten to unseat corporate bosses and owners. Protected unions are sufficiently neutered that they will not be able to attempt serious structural economic changes. Those types of changes are reserved for Congress and the state legislatures.

And that is the central bargain of American labor law. Yes, companies are forced to recognize unions. But in turn, the unions are sufficiently defanged that they'll never be able to overthrow corporate ownership or threaten the basic economic power structure of the country. The bosses will have to negotiate over pay and benefits, but they don't have to worry about their factory being forcibly or coercively converted to a worker-owned co-op.