Union violence refers to violence committed by unions or union members to achieve political objectives, particularly during labor disputes. When union violence has occurred, it has frequently been in the context of industrial unrest.[1] Violence has ranged from isolated acts by individuals to wider campaigns of organized violence aimed at furthering union goals within an industrial dispute.[2][3][4]
Protests and verbal abuse are routinely aimed against union members or replacement workers who cross picket lines ("blacklegs" or "scabs") during industrial disputes. The inherent aim of a union is to create a labor monopoly so as to balance the monopsony a large employer enjoys as a purchaser of labor. Strikebreakers threaten that goal and undermine the union's bargaining position, and occasionally this erupts into violent confrontation, with violence committed either by, or against, strikers.[1] Some who have sought to explain such violence observe, if labor disputes are accompanied by violence, it may be because labor has no legal redress.[10] In 1894, some workers declared:
..."the right of employers to manage their own business to suit themselves," is fast coming to mean in effect nothing less than a right to manage the country to suit themselves.[11]
Occasionally, violent disputes occur between unions, when one union breaks another's strike.[citation needed]
Research on union violence
Researchers in industrial relations, criminology, and wider cultural studies have examined violence by workers or trade unions in the context of industrial disputes.[1][12][13][14] US and Australian government reports have examined violence during industrial disputes.[15][16]
1972 - British Trade Union representative Ricky Tomlinson, now best known as an actor, was convicted for a two-year term for threatening construction workers.[21]
1986 - During protests by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547 against workers replacing union jobs, picketers engaged in scuffles, chanting and sounding gunshots.[24][25] In 1999, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the union had engaged in "ongoing acts of intimidation, violence, destruction of property", awarding the plaintiff $212,500 in punitive damages.[24][25]
1990 - on the first day of The New York Daily News strike, delivery trucks were attacked with stones and sticks, and in some cases burned, with the drivers beaten.[2][3][4] Strikers then started threatening newsstands with arson, or stole all copies of the Daily News and burned them in front of the newsstands.[2][3][4] James Hoge, publisher of the Daily News, alleged that there had been some 700 serious acts of violence. The New York Police Department claimed knowledge of 229 incidents of violence. Criminal charges under the Hobbs Act were declined, however, citing the aforementioned Enmons case.[2][3][4]
1993 - Eddie York was killed by a rifle shot in the head while crossing a United Mine Workers (UMW) picket line at a coal mine in Logan County, West Virginia, on July 22, 1993. Like the 1990 NY Daily News strike, criminal charges under the Hobbs Act were declined, with the FBI and Justice Department citing the Enmons case.[26][27]
1997 - On August 7, 1997, Teamsters Orestes Espinosa, Angel Mielgo, Werner Haechler, Benigno Rojas, and Adrian Paez beat, kicked, and stabbed a UPS worker (Rod Carter) who refused to strike, after Carter received a threatening phone call from the home of Anthony Cannestro Sr., president of Teamsters Local 769.[28][29]
^ abcPhilip Taft; Philip Ross (June 1969). "American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome". In Hugh Davis Graham; Ted Robert Gurr (eds.). The History of Violence in America: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. New York, USA: Bantam. p. 221.
^ abcdThe Wall Street Journal. November 2, 1990. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^ abcdMichael Gartner (November 29, 1990). "Nation Shrugs as Thugs Firebomb Freedom". The Wall Street Journal.
^Mixer and server, Volume 12. Hotel and Restaurant Employee's International Alliance and Bartenders' International League of America. 1903. p. 44.
^J. Bernard Hogg. "Public Reaction to Pinkertonism and the Labor Question". Pennsylvania History 11. No. July 1944. pp. 171–199., citing John Bascom (September 15, 1892). "Civil Law and Social Progress". The Independent. Vol. xliv. p. 1279.
^J. Bernard Hogg. "Public Reaction to Pinkertonism and the Labor Question". Pennsylvania History 11. No. July 1944. pp. 171–199., citing the advisory committee of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers during the Homestead Strike
^Armand J. Thieblot Jr.; Thomas R. Haggard (1983). Union Violence: The Record and the Response by Courts, Legislatures and the NLRB. Industrial Research Unit, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
^Brinker, Paul. Violence by U.S. labor unions, Journal of Labor Research, 1985-12-01, Volume 6, Number 4. pp. 417–427.
^Closing the Legal Loophole for Union Violence: Hearing Before the Committee On the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fifth Congress, First Session, On S. 230 ... Washington: U.S. G.P.O., 1998. September 3, 1997.
