[fennecfoxen]

Would that this were the most important thing in the Amazon unionization effort. We would maintain measures like an actual election with secret ballots — instead of card check, where the Teamsters can see if you've signed the card, and pressure you if you haven't.

The Biden administration, I understand, wishes the return of card-check.

[disposekinetics]

I totally agree. I support the theory behind unions, but the practices by employers and unions make me wish for less coercion all around.

[fennecfoxen]

Look on the bright side: it used to be a whole lot worse.

I mean on both sides, too. The Pinkerton thugs get all the press, and are rightly condemned, but for coverage of the union men beating their non-union colleagues to death with clubs, blinding a man with thrown stones, I refer you to coverage such as McLure's Magazine article The Right To Work (1903) which gave its name to the type of law: http://moses.law.umn.edu/darrow/documents/Right%20to%20work....

I like the distinction that it draws at the beginning, too:

"PUBLIC opinion seems to be coming around to the view that the trades' union is here to stay. From many unexpected quarters we hear every now and then a more generous acknowledgment that the organization of labor is not only as inevitable as the combination of capital, but a good thing in itself. At the same time, and from the same fair minds, you hear expressions of passionate indignation at the abuse of power by unions. This means that public opinion is beginning to distinguish between unionism and the sins of unionists, as it is between organized capital and the sins of capitalists."

All we have to contend with today, here, are the vengeful downvotes.

[chalst]

I'm not an expert on US union law, but AFAICS, American workers have a choice between card check, which in principle allows intimidation by unions, and the NLRA process, which has been documented as enabling intimidation by employers. Do you have another proposal?

[disposekinetics]

I like the way it was put. I love unions but I'm frustrated by the 'sins of unionists'

[bpodgursky]

This was expected as soon as Biden appointed a union machine boss as Secretary of Labor.