American union monopoly raised wages over five percent yearly after policy shifts.

Evidence

Also invited by Hayek and Crane to give his point of view on the question was Harold Gregg Lewis, who pursued the same theoretical line as Petro (Lewis 1958, 5). According to Lewis, the monopolizing activities of American unions resulted in a wage increase of 5 percent or more each year. In his view, the inflation rate inevitably followed this trend. This “significant labour monopoly problem” illustrates the growing economic influence of unions that tended to be correlated with the growth of union membership after the mid-1930s. “The main cause [of both trends was] a change in public policy toward trade unions” (Lewis 1958, 1) where the turning point appeared to be the Norris-LaGuardia Act. In addition, this change in public policy encouraged “awful” union practices (discriminatory limitation on admission to union membership, closed shop, boycott, and even racketeering). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 975

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the ‘labor monopoly’ framing and the Norris-LaGuardia Act as the legal turning point that Harris-Lewis neoliberal economists blamed for union power.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s wider reading on how neoliberal intellectuals constructed labor unions as monopolies — echoes the Mont Pèlerin network’s anti-union legal reform agenda. — connects to: Union decline concentrates income at the top — Ken-Hou Lin & Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Financialization and U.S. Income…, 137; Rising wages reflect monetary conditions rather than union coercion causing inflation — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 976

Broader Connections

• Rising wages reflect monetary conditions rather than union coercion causing inflation #contradicts (0.75) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 976