Labor unions appear in The Bob Zadek Show chiefly as an economic and political force that the host and his guests treat as harmful to job creation and to immigration. The excerpts do not present a union representative or a sustained defense of organized labor; unions are discussed by Bob Zadek and by guests including economist Don Boudreaux, immigration analyst Alex Nowrasteh, and commentator Kim Kavin.
Unions and wage-setting
In a July 2011 episode, Bob Zadek argued that the only purpose of trade unions in America today is to force wages above market rates to non-market rates, and that any other purpose has gone by the wayside. He grouped unions with the minimum wage, Davis-Bacon, and states’ mini Davis-Bacon statutes as devices that artificially increase wages, comparing the effect to a government decree that every car be sold for twice its market price. The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011)
Guest Don Boudreaux agreed with the analogy and extended it, saying that the handful of people helped by labor unions are not the poor struggling workers unions present themselves as championing but the already highly skilled, higher-paid workers who get paid even more because of union restrictions. In the same segment, Boudreaux listed the minimum wage, Davis-Bacon, occupational licensing, and the monopoly in K-12 education as job killers, describing the public school monopolies as dominated by the teachers’ unions. The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011)
Bob Zadek also tied union restrictions to black unemployment, saying that reducing the monopoly that unions have on jobs would make it easier to get a job and that employment would go through the roof. He framed the lack of jobs as a function not of free market failure but of the free market being not allowed to operate. The Second American Revolution – NOW (2011)
Unions and immigration restriction
A December 2016 episode with Alex Nowrasteh treated unions as participants in the restrictive turn in American immigration law. Nowrasteh described laws passed beginning in the late 1880s against the importation of workers who could break up labor unions, and said that the xenophobic period from roughly 1880 to 1930 was not only racist but an unholy alliance between racists, labor unions, and progressives supporting immigration bans for their own reasons. Alex Nowrasteh: How Prop. 187 Turned California Blue (2016)
In a February 2023 episode, Nowrasteh returned to the same history, saying that in combination with racial and ethnic prejudice there was also a push from labor unions to restrict immigration so that they could protect themselves and their workers, alongside a growing sense of American nationalism and the eugenics movement. American anxiety about immigration is unwarranted. Here’s why. (2023)
Immigration as a check on union power
A May 2020 episode reversed the direction of causation. Nowrasteh, describing research he conducted with Benjamin Powell of Texas Tech University for a book forthcoming from Cambridge University Press, said they found no evidence that immigrants from poor countries undermine institutions in developed countries, and considerable evidence that they improve institutions in the United States. One mechanism he offered is that immigrants undermine labor unions, which he said cannot organize effectively when there are immigrants in an area. Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020)
Nowrasteh characterized labor unions as the one most powerful vehicle from which left-wing politicians gain power, become more progressive over time, and have the money to organize, get out the vote, and run campaigns. He said it is no mistake that when immigration was most closed, from the mid-1920s through the mid-to-late 1960s, the federal and state governments grew tremendously as unions grew, and that unions began to shrink and collapse in the late 1960s and early 1970s exactly as immigration laws were liberalized. He concluded that increasing immigration is one of the best ways to defend institutions from anti-capitalist ideas because it undermines labor unions. Immigration Myth-Busting - Redux (2020)
Unions and independent contracting
A July 2020 episode with Kim Kavin concerned California legislation on independent contractors. Bob Zadek said there was no groundswell of complaints from the workers being protected, that nobody was crying out for help and nobody was organizing unions or ad hoc coalitions to be protected from Uber or Lyft. He traced the legislation to a California Supreme Court case called Dynamex, in which the court set forth a restrictive standard of independent contractor citing legislation and tradition going back to the 1930s; the legislature then codified it. Terrible New Worker “Protection” Laws Threaten the Gig Economy (2020)
Zadek said he wanted to explore how the measure is driven by unions and by the bloodlust of government for more tax revenue and more control, and that protecting workers is political cover. Terrible New Worker “Protection” Laws Threaten the Gig Economy (2020)
Unions and the fast food industry
A December 2022 episode featured Professor Richard Epstein discussing the California FAST Act, described in the excerpt as a piece of legislation aimed at regulating the fast food industry. The excerpt states that Zadek and Epstein explore how the law serves as a tool for unionization and the potential legal challenges it faces regarding federal preemption and the National Labor Relations Act. The excerpt lists the FAST Act, labor unions, franchise law, the National Labor Relations Act, California politics, and the minimum wage among its topics. Which Side Are You On? (2022)
Unions and federal hiring
A January 2023 episode with Ashley Varner discussed the expansion of the Internal Revenue Service. The excerpt states that Zadek and Varner explored the idea that hiring tens of thousands of new agents serves as a significant financial boost for labor unions through mandatory dues, which in turn supports specific political interests, and that the conversation highlights a perceived cycle in which government expansion directly benefits organizations supporting the administration’s agenda. What the IRS’s Hiring Spree Means for You (2023)
Across episodes
The topic recurs across six episodes spanning 2011 to 2023, and the treatment is consistent rather than developing: unions are described as wage-distorting in 2011, as immigration restrictionists in 2016 and 2023, as institutions undermined by immigration in 2020, as backers of California contractor and fast food legislation in 2020 and 2022, and as beneficiaries of IRS hiring in 2023. Bob Zadek advances the wage and gig economy arguments, Don Boudreaux the wage and education arguments, Alex Nowrasteh the immigration arguments, and the FAST Act and IRS episodes are summarized without attributed quotations. No excerpt shows a guest defending unions or disputing the characterization.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts contain no union officer, organizer, or member speaking, and no data on union membership, dues levels, or collective bargaining outcomes. They do not describe the internal governance of unions, the legal framework governing organizing, or any specific union by name other than the teachers’ unions as a category. Several excerpts are segment summaries rather than transcripts, and one ends mid-sentence, so the arguments made in those episodes are recorded only as the summaries state them.