Conservative Think Tank Fellow Argues New Right Labor Policies Would Harm Workers

Rachel Greszler, a senior research fellow at the Plymouth Institute for Free Enterprise at Advancing American Freedom Foundation, wrote an essay for The Right Way Forward series arguing that labor policies recently embraced by parts of the New Right would produce outcomes opposite to those intended.

The essay appears in a debate series by Restoring America in which conservative institutions discuss questions of the post-Trump era. For decades, conservatives held that free markets, rather than government mandates, provided the best foundation for good jobs, rising wages and expanding opportunity, Greszler wrote.

She stated that this consensus has fractured as the New Right has supported an interventionist approach including wage mandates, stronger unions, sectoral bargaining, mandates for faster labor contracts and laws that micromanage operations at individual employers such as warehouses.

Greszler wrote that concerns about wage growth failing to match increases in housing, healthcare and higher education costs are valid and that the right's renewed focus on workers is overdue. She argued, however, that the proposed government interventions misdiagnose the problems and risk making them worse.

The essay said conservatism rests on the view that society is too complex for central engineering of outcomes and that families, civil society and markets hold knowledge that policymakers lack. It listed traditional conservative means as strong property rights, freedom of contract, open competition, limited regulation and labor market flexibility.

Real average earnings in the United States increased 28 percent between 2000 and 2024, according to the essay. That compared with a 5 percent increase in Spain, a 2 percent decline in Italy and a 6 percent drop in Greece, countries that have some of the heaviest labor market interventions.

Greszler wrote that a pro-worker agenda should prioritize individuals over collective organizations and favor competition over forced coordination. She stated that many union-centered policies rely on exclusive representation in which one organization speaks for all workers regardless of individual support.

The essay said many interventionist proposals misunderstand the sources of worker frustration. It attributed affordability pressures primarily to rising costs in housing, healthcare and education rather than to wages alone. Government policies bear much of the responsibility for those cost increases, according to Greszler.

Zoning and land-use regulations limit housing supply while environmental rules and property taxes add to expenses. Federal subsidies and third-party payment systems in higher education and healthcare distort incentives and drive up costs, she wrote.

Occupational licensing further restricts entry into well-paying fields by limiting competition. The essay warned that adding labor mandates on top of these existing distortions would compound rather than solve the problems.

Greszler cited economist Thomas Sowell: "Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. " She stated that wage mandates tend to reduce employment, especially among younger and less experienced workers. Sectoral bargaining risks cartelizing labor markets, which could reduce competition and innovation.

Legislation such as the Faster Labor Contracts Act, which would impose binding arbitration, and the Warehouse Worker Protections Act, which would dictate warehouse operations, would lead to less growth and reduced flexibility, the essay said. It described such steps as moving toward central planning.

The essay concluded that a genuinely pro-worker conservatism should trust individuals, families and communities to make their own decisions and focus on creating conditions for upward mobility through limited government intervention. >"The Right is right to care about workers, not just for the economic benefits, but because work is a primary source of human dignity.