| >>It's clear that you are anti-union. I don't think being pro or anti-union is the issue. I think being pro or anti-union due to ideological biases or a personal financial conflict of interest is the issue. That's what the TAs unionizing could result in. If one has a normative stance on unions that is derived from impartial analysis, that seems fine to me. >>It's like you didn't even read the Wikipedia page for Commonwealth v. Hunt. I was not talking about that case. I was talking about your earlier point about unions existing before labor laws gave them legal privileges, which you claimed proves unions can survive in a free market. My point was that historically, in the pre-labor-law era, all of the leverage that unions had seems to have come from the threat of violence toward replacement workers, and company property, which intimidated employers into negotiations. Are you familiar with how strikes were conducted in the 19th century? Are you familiar with the blockades, violently enforced picket lines, etc? |
Thus, I don't see your original comment as adding anything other than FUD.
You wrote "I was not talking about that case". However, here's the chain:
You: "Unions would be immediately fired if they were operating in a free market. Their power depends entirely on laws that restrict the contracting freedom of the employer."
Me: "We know that unions exist in a free market and with no laws to support them because history gives clear examples." I specifically pointed to the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker’s Society in Commonwealth v. Hunt as my example.
You: "I was not talking about that case"
Except you were. You made a claim that was for all unions, including craft unions.
Now you're backing away from your claim when you realized it's indefensible.
You make that claim again with your statement "all of the leverage that unions had seems to have come from the threat of violence toward replacement workers, and company property, which intimidated employers into negotiations."
Again, I point to Commonwealth v. Hunt as a counter-example to your claim. Their power comes from the collective agreement to quit en mass. The Supreme Court of MA found no conspiracy to threaten replacement workers or destroy company problem.
Since what you claim is clearly wrong, why do you repeat it?
Yes, certainly I know the basics of how strikes were conducted in the 19th century. But strikes aren't the only way to exercise collective bargaining ... as shown in Commonwealth v. Hunt where no evidence was presented to show the boot makers were even planning to strike.
Yes, I know about blockades, violently enforced picket lines, etc.
Yes, I also know about the Pinkerton Agency goon squads that the business owners employed, which among other things lead to the Anti-Pinkerton Act. And the "un-American" paternalism which was partially to blame for the Pullman Strike. And the deadly strike-breaking actions of Baldwin–Felts, leading to the Ludlow Massacre.
This is why I stressed that you were looking at only 1/2 of the picture when you focused on government prohibitions of what an employer could do, and not also government prohibitions on what the unions could do.
As MLK said, "a riot is the language of the unheard". Collective bargaining is a way to be heard.