If employers were prohibited from hiring permanent replacement workers, they could not impose any long-run costs on striking unions. As the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged, existing law allows each side to threaten to impose long-run costs. Finally, the ability of employers to hire permanent replacement workers provides a market-reality check to both sides in a labor dispute. But if the employer cannot do so, it knows that the union's terms are not unrealistic. If employers were permitted to hire only temporary replacement workers, as the proposed legislation specifies, this market-reality check would vanish.
Workers are often reluctant to accept temporary job offers even at high pay.
Although only 10.4 percent of private sector workers are unionized, the proposed legislation creates privileges for union workers at the expense of rights of union-free workers.