One way to check the unions’ power is for the government to dictate through compulsory arbitration, the terms of employment throughout an entire industry. I am opposed to this course because it simply transfers economic power from the unions to the government, and encourages State Socialism. The other way is to disperse union power and thus extend freedom in labor-management relations. Eighty years ago the nation was faced with a comparable concentration of economic power. Large corporations, by gaining monopoly control over entire industries, had nullified the laws of competition that are conducive to freedom. We responded to that challenge by outlawing monopolies through the Sherman Act and other anti-trust legislation. _These laws, however, have never been applied to labor unions._ And I am at a loss to understand why. If it is wrong for a single corporation to dictate prices throughout an entire industry, it is also wrong for a single union--or, as is the actual case, a small number of union leaders--to dictate wages and terms of employment throughout an entire industry. _The evil to be eliminated is the power of unions to enforce industry-wide bargaining._ Employees have a right, as we have seen, to select a common agent for bargaining with _their_ employer but they do not have a right to select a national agent to bargain with all employers in the industry. If a union has the power to enforce uniform conditions of employment throughout the nation its power is comparable to that of a Socialist government. Employers are forbidden to act collusively for sound reasons. The same reasons apply to unions. Industry-wide price-fixing causes economic dislocations. So does industry-wide wage-fixing. A wage that is appropriate in one part of the country may not be in another area where economic conditions are very different. Corporate monopolies impair the operation of the free market, and thus injure the consuming public. So do union monopolies. When the United Automobile Workers demand a wage increase from the auto industry, a single monolith is pitted against a number of separate, competing companies. The contest is an unequal one, for the union is able to play off one company against another. The result is that individual companies are unable to resist excessive wage demands and must, in turn, raise their prices. The consumer ultimately suffers for he pays prices that are fixed not by free market competition--the law of supply and demand--but by the arbitrary decision of national union leaders. Far better if the employees of Ford were required to deal with Ford, and those of Chrysler with Chrysler and so on. The collective bargaining process will work for the common good in all industries if it is confined to the employers and employees directly concerned.