"Whaddaya mean youse not gonna join da union?"
The below message is from Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Committee and concerns the most recent example of union violence. It is deeply disturbing.
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"Dear Gary,
"There's nothing wrong, or un-democratic, or un-American about militancy. It's part of our tradition."
That's one Communications Workers of America (CWA) union official's spin in response to news reports about rampant intimidation and militancy on the picket lines in the strike against Verizon ordered by CWA and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union brass.
New disturbing reports break every day.
Union strikers shot at one worker. Another injured his arm after union goons pushed him into scaffolding. Verizon's security chief receives hundreds of reports of sabotage, intimidation, or violence daily.
With 143 acts of sabotage since August 7, the first day of the strike, company officials and independent-minded workers aren't the only victims.
When union militants cut phone lines, Verizon customers who just want their phones to work may be unable to call for help in an emergency. IBEW union militants even picketed outside a 64 year old woman's house because she had the audacity to let a Verizon technician repair her broken phone line.
The CWA union boss is right about one thing: union militancy is a big part of Big Labor's tradition.
Just last week, far from the union picket lines against Verizon, John King, a nonunion electrical contractor in Toledo, Ohio woke up in the middle of the night to sounds in his driveway. The motion light turned on, and he went outside to investigate -- and found someone vandalizing his car.
The vandal stood up, shot King in the arm, and fled the scene.
This isn't the first time union militants have targeted King -- or his employees. Earlier this year, someone threw a rock with the word "kill" inscribed on it through his store's window.
Fortunately, the worst possible outcome has yet to occur in the Verizon strike or to King and his workers. But union violence can -- and has -- cost workers' lives.
In 1993, nonunion contractor Eddie York was killed after getting shot in the back of the head during a particularly violent United Mineworkers (UMW) strike.
Reader's Digest reported that "UMW President Richard Trumka did not publicly discipline or reprimand a single striker present when York was killed. In fact, all eight were helped out financially by the local."
After an earlier UMW strike, a Virginia judge found that "the evidence shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of this union."
Richard Trumka is now the President of the AFL-CIO, the largest Big Labor umbrella organization with affiliates including both the CWA and IBEW unions.
For more on Trumka's ugly history of violence and intimidation, download the National Right to Work Foundation's fact sheet.
The "tradition" of union militancy employed by Trumka and others is compounded by a loophole in federal law that exempts union officials from federal prosecution -- as long as the campaign of violence they incite is in the name of "legitimate union objectives."
Please, click here to urge your Congressman and Senators to close that loophole by cosponsoring and seeking roll-call votes on the Freedom from Union Violence Act.
Unless the politicians in Washington are forced to pay attention, they will continue to turn a blind eye to the violence committed by their union-boss patrons.
In addition to your signed petition, your generous contribution will enable us to personally brief hundreds of influential nationally syndicated columnists, editorial writers and talk radio hosts in order to build momentum in the media for the Freedom from Union Violence Act.
Please chip in with a contribution of $10 or more today to help put an end to Big Labor's terror tactics once and for all.
It's time to end this so-called "tradition."
Sincerely,
Mark Mix
P.S. The National Right to Work Committee relies on your voluntary support. Please consider chipping in with a contribution of $10 or more today.
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The National Right to Work Committee is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, single-purpose citizens' organization dedicated to combating compulsory unionism through an aggressive program designed to mobilize public opposition to compulsory unionism and, at the same time, enlist public support for Right to Work legislation. The Committee's mailing address is 8001 Braddock Road, Springfield, Virginia 22160. The Committee can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-325-7892. Its web address is http://nrtwc.org/
Not produced or e-mailed at taxpayer expense.
To help the National Right to Work Committee grow, please forward this to a friend.
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Keep in mind that President Obama and the whole Democratic party are 4 square in support of unions and are presently trying to pass pro-union legislation in Congress that would literally force workers to join a union or face intimidation and violence.
9 comments:
I WISH President Obama and the Democratic Party were four square in support of unions. They are pretty wimpy about it in my seldom humble opinion.
Mark Mix is the capo of the 21st century Pinkertons. His propaganda is as reliable as Allan Pinkerton's report of confederate battle strength. Verizon can afford more and better goons -- that's why the workers are always at a disadvantage.
P.S. Here is the future that the National Right to Work for Less Committee has in mind for all of us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-h8EBP0JSs&sns=em
I didn't mean to hog this subject, but at a more nuanced conservative site I ran across this:
http://www.dappledthings.org/peterpaul11/feature_truthandtrade.php
and I particularly recommend this citation from Medaille's case for distributist economics:
"However, Adam Smith pointed out the fallacy of this logic. The worker “bargains” under the compulsion of poverty; he simply cannot do without the work for any appreciable length of time. The owners of capital, on the other hand, can go long periods without working, and hence they are under less compulsion. In other words, Smith pointed out that labor contracts arbitrate power, not productivity. The CEO gets 500 times what the line worker gets not because he is 500 times more productive but because he is 500 times more powerful; the seamstress in a sweatshop gets a pittance not because her productivity is low but because her power is pitiful."
I would support any practical distributist program, but in the absence of such, the point of a union is to match the 500x power of the capitalist with the power of 500x workers. It is a power struggle, on both sides of the equation. The purpose of Mixed Up Mark and his gang of thugs is to prevent employees from being able to even things out with their employers.
What about the owner of a compnay who has all of his money invested in it and takes the biggest risk? If I start a company, I should make the most money.
when we agree to a give back the company takes it off the table . they dont know what they want .they want to break us . is it thuggery when u cut benifits off during contract talks.or when you move someone 33 miles and 6 months later tell them you moving them 33 more miles away . they want us to give up like the 20,000 others who took buy outs in the last 5 years cause they had enough
Anonymous,
Have you ever considered finding another employer? You are free to do so, you know.
Gary, your cheap shot at Anonymous is absurd. Any employer Anonymous might apply to has a 500-1 power differential, AND is likely to take the word of his current employer and blacklist him. That's the problem.
Now, getting back to your more substantive question:
Anyone who invests capital is entitled to a return on that investment. Most labor disputes turn on whether the investors are entitled to a 100% return on investment, while keeping wages down to a level where employees have to spend two thirds of their income on rent, or should settle for a 25% return on investment, while paying wages that keep rent (or allow for savings and mortgage payments) amounting to about one third of income.
The numbers are randomly selected to illustrate the relationship of one to another. I know there are businesses that operate with about a one percent profit margin. Most of them are quite large, and haven't had much NEW capital injected in quite a while. One reason the profit margin is so low is that revenue is re-invested, rather than selling new shares to raise new capital.
Similarly, if I or you were to start a brand new business in a brand new field, either or any of us has the right to direct how it grows and how it reaches its designated goals. People who don't really want to be part of what that business IS should indeed look elsewhere -- just as a vegetarian shouldn't apply for a job at a steak house, then object to serving burnt dead animal flesh to customers.
It is a very rare instance where a business is worried that if they pay the wages the union is demanding, they will have to borrow a million dollars a year, and will eventually go broke. More commonly, they are worried that it might cost twenty percent of their profit margin to pay a decent wage.
Siarlys,
Let's make it simple: No one forces you to take a job. An employer owes his employee an honest day's pay for an honest day's work. If you don't like your pay or working conditions, you are free to go elsewhere.
You are not "free to go elsewhere" Gary. That is a patent lie, except I credit that you believe it. That is like telling someone with a gun to their head "You're free to go, only if you do, I'll shoot you."
First, right now there is relatively high unemployment, so your chances of being hired are dubious. Second, every job application asks "Why did you leave your last job?" The honest answer, "Because they didn't pay me what I'm worth," or "Because I couldn't stand the way the boss ran things," would guarantee nobody would hire you.
I give you the benefit of the doubt that if you started a business, you would honor the injunction "the laborer is worthy of his hire." But the larger the enterprise, the more you get into massive flows of financing and capital, the less that is true. One of the famous quotes from the robber baron era was "Anyone who hires labor for any less than the least he can get it for is robbing his shareholders." Flip that: anyone who pays his shareholders any more than the very least he can get capital for is robbing his employees."
Like it or not Gary, it is a power struggle, and the employers hold all the cards. With a good union, workers might, if they're lucky, get a portion of what justice entitles them to. (I use the word "entitle" taking into consideration skill, experience, and punctuality).
One of the things done well in the movie F.I.S.T., which certainly showed corruption at its worst, is that it showed in some depth, at the beginning, why workers formed unions in the first place. Take a look at how the foreman treated Dumbrowski for instance.
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