ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of a worker's right to organize into a union in constitutional law and constitutional politics. The right to organize plays an important role in vulnerability theory because it provides a means of empowerment for vulnerable workers and facilitates the full inclusion of disempowered outsiders in our political and economic realm. It is recognized as a fundamental right under international law. There are three components to that right – the right to be a union member, the right to bargain collectively, and the right to strike to influence the bargaining process. Courts have found that the First Amendment protects the first component of the right, the right of an individual to be a member of a union. The court has emphatically rejected the second component – the right to collective bargaining – and has by and large ignored the third constitutional argument in favor of the right to strike.
