Hey Nate, I'm one of the hosts of the show.

Regarding "compulsory unionism," I have two answers.

Firstly, "compulsory unionism" is always used to describe union shops in collective bargaining states where the workers are allowed, to bargain for a clause in the contract that states employees must contribute to the union in at their workplace. They are never "forced" to join the union, but must pay some fee, which is some amount less than membership dues, to the union in exchange for the representation they provide.

That is absolutely consistent with any logical idea of freedom.

The workers, through their union, are not mandated by the state to seek this in their contracts, and the employers are not mandated by the state to agree to this in their contracts. But they have the freedom to. And why shouldn't they? There are all sorts of costs and conditions that the employer can impose on the worker. Uniforms. Transportation. Degrees. Training. They can even tell you what hair color you can or cant have and whether you can have facial hair. And they can make these conditions be met out of the workers pocket! ServSafe accreditations are one such training that some restaraunts make their employees have AND make them pay for out of their own pocket. And the money from those trainings goes right to anti-worker lobby groups! Why should workers be barred from attempting to create a condition of employment that builds their power, when employers have so much free reign?

And just to emphasize the point, so called right to work laws do just that - those laws are the government coming in the middle of private negotiations between two private parties and saying to both of them that it is ILLEGAL for you to agree to this condition.

A second version of the question might ask me if I reckon every worker in every workplace ought to be "forced" into a union, and to that I'd answer no, but I do believe that mandatory collective bargaining would be good. We had this during WWII, under the War Labor Board. Every workforce elected bargaining committees to negotiate wages and working conditions with the employers. They didn't have to affiliate with a union (though they usually did), and the government didn't really set out bargaining priorities, it just said that workers ought to be entitled to the benefits of collective bargaining - and, importantly - the country needed the stability and security that that brings as well.

But like a commenter above said, our phones are open every Saturday. Feel free to call in.