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Anti-union Organizations In The United States
In the United States shortly after 1900, there were few effective employers' organizations that opposed the union movement. By 1903, these organizations started to coalesce, and a national employers' movement began to exert a powerful influence on industrial relations and public affairs. For nearly a decade prior to 1903, an industrial union called the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) had been increasing in power, militancy, and radicalism as a response to dangerous working conditions, employer-employee inequality, the imposition of long hours of work, and what members perceived as an imperious attitude on the part of employers. In particular, members of the WFM had been outraged by employers' widespread use of labor spies in organizing efforts such as Coeur d'Alene. The miners' frustrations had occasionally exploded in anger and violence. But they had also tried peaceful change, and found that route impossible. For example, after winning a referendum vote for the eight-hour da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Busting
Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or prevent the formation of trade unions or their attempts to grow their membership in a workplace. Union busting tactics can refer to both legal and illegal activities, and can range anywhere from subtle to violent. Labor laws differ greatly from country to country in both level and type of regulations in respect to their protection of unions, their organizing activities, as well as other aspects. These laws can affect topics such as posting notices, organizing on or off employer property, solicitations, card signing, union dues, picketing, work stoppages, striking and strikebreaking, lockouts, termination of employment, permanent replacements, automatic recognition, derecognition, ballot elections, and employer-controlled trade unions. Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) declares that everyone has a right to form and/or join a trade union. The provision is, however, not legally bindi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Industrial Unionism
Industrial unionism is a trade union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union, regardless of skill or trade, thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations. Industrial unionism contrasts with craft unionism, which organizes workers along lines of their specific trades. History Early history Eugene Debs formed the American Railway Union (ARU) as an industrial organization in response to limitations of craft unions. Railroad engineers and firemen had called a strike, but other employees, particularly conductors who were organized into a different craft, did not join that strike. The conductors piloted scab engineers on the train routes, helping their employers to break the strike. In June 1894, the newly formed, industrially organized ARU voted to join in solidarity with an ongoing strike against the Pullman company. The sympathy strike demonstrated the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Federation Of Miners
The Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was a labor union that gained a reputation for militancy in the mines of the western United States and British Columbia. Its efforts to organize both hard rock miners and smelter workers brought it into sharp conflicts – and often pitched battles – with both employers and governmental authorities. One of the most dramatic of these struggles occurred in the Cripple Creek district of Colorado in 1903–1904; the conflicts were thus dubbed the Colorado Labor Wars. The WFM also played a key role in the founding of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1905, but left that organization several years later. The WFM changed its name to the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (more familiarly referred to as Mine Mill) in 1916. After a period of decline it revived in the early days of the New Deal and helped found the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in 1935. The Mine Mill union was expelled from the CIO in 1950 du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labor Spies
Labor spying in the United States had involved people recruited or employed for the purpose of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, sowing dissent, or engaging in other similar activities, in the context of an employer/labor organization relationship. Spying by companies on union activities has been illegal in the United States since the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. However, non-union monitoring of employee activities while at work is perfectly legal and, according to the American Management Association, nearly 80% of major US companies actively monitor their employees. Statistics suggest that historically trade unions have been frequent targets of labor spying. Labor spying is most typically used by companies or their agents, and such activity often complements union busting. In at least one case, an employer hired labor spies to spy not only upon strikers, but also upon strikebreakers that he had hired. Sidney Howard observed in 1921 that the labor spy, "often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coeur D'Alene Miners' Dispute
There were two related incidents between miners and mine owners in the Coeur d'Alene Mining District of North Idaho: the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor strike of 1892, and the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho labor confrontation of 1899. This article is a brief overview of both events. The strike of 1892 had its roots in the first pay cut by the Bunker Hill Mining Company in 1887. Immediately after the reduction in wages miners organized the first union at Wardner on November 3, 1887. The response to that violence, disastrous for the local miners' union, became the primary motivation for the formation of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) the following year. The confrontation of 1899 resulted from the miners' frustrations with mine operators that paid lower wages; hired Pinkerton or Thiel operatives to infiltrate the union; and routinely fired any miner who held a union card. Coeur d'Alene strike of 1892 Coeur d'Alene, Idaho area miners organized into several local unions during the 1880s. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colorado Labor Wars
The Colorado Labor Wars were a series of labor strikes in 1903 and 1904 in the U.S. state of Colorado, by gold and silver miners and mill workers represented by the Western Federation of Miners (WFM). Opposing the WFM were associations of mine owners and businessmen at each location, supported by the Colorado state government. The strikes were notable and controversial for the accompanying violence, and the imposition of martial law by the Colorado National Guard in order to put down the strikes. A nearly simultaneous strike in Colorado's northern and southern coal fields was also met with a military response by the Colorado National Guard. Colorado's most significant battles between labor and capital occurred between miners and mine operators. In these battles the state government, with one exception, sided with the mine operators. Additional participants have included the National Guard, often informally called the militia; private contractors such as the Pinkertons, Ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-union Violence
Anti-union violence is physical force intended to harm union officials, union organizers, union members, union sympathizers, or their families. It is most commonly used either during union organizing efforts, or during strikes. The aim most often is to prevent a union from forming, to destroy an existing union, or to reduce the effectiveness of a union or a particular strike action. If strikers prevent people or goods to enter or leave a workplace, violence may be used to allow people and goods to pass the picket line. Violence against unions may be isolated, or may occur as part of a campaign that includes spying, intimidation, impersonation, disinformation, and sabotage. Violence in labor disputes may be the result of unreasonable polarization, or miscalculation. It may be willful and provoked, or senseless and tragic. On some occasions, violence in labor disputes may be purposeful and calculated, for example the hiring and deployment of goon squads to assault strikers. Inciden ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of Union Busting In The United States
The history of union busting in the United States dates back to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution produced a rapid expansion in factories and manufacturing capabilities. As workers moved from farms to factories, mines and other hard labor, they faced harsh working conditions such as long hours, low pay and health risks. Children and women worked in factories and generally received lower pay than men. The government did little to limit these conditions. Labor movements in the industrialized world developed and lobbied for better rights and safer conditions. Shaped by wars, depressions, government policies, judicial rulings, and global competition, the early years of the battleground between unions and management were adversarial and often identified with aggressive hostility. Contemporary opposition to trade unions known as union busting started in the 1940s, and continues to present challenges to the labor movement. Union busting is a term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Organizer
A union organizer (or union organiser in Commonwealth spelling) is a specific type of trade union member (often elected) or an appointed union official. A majority of unions appoint rather than elect their organizers. In some unions, the organizer's role is to recruit groups of workers under the organizing model. In other unions, the organizer's role is largely that of servicing members and enforcing work rules, similar to the role of a shop steward. In some unions, organizers may also take on industrial/legal roles such as making representations before Fair Work Australia, tribunals, or courts. In North America, a union organizer is a union representative who "organizes" or unionizes non-union companies or worksites. Organizers primarily exist to assist non-union workers in forming chapters of locals, usually by leading them in their efforts. Methodology Organizers employ various methods to secure recognition by the employer as being a legitimate union, the ultimate goal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Union Threat Model
The term efficiency wages (or rather "efficiency earnings") was introduced by Alfred Marshall to denote the wage per efficiency unit of labor. Marshallian efficiency wages would make employers pay different wages to workers who are of different efficiencies such that the employer would be indifferent between more-efficient workers and less-efficient workers. The modern use of the term is quite different and refers to the idea that higher wages may increase the efficiency of the workers by various channels, making it worthwhile for the employers to offer wages that exceed a market-clearing level. Optimal efficiency wage is achieved when the marginal cost of an increase in wages is equal to the marginal benefit of improved productivity to an employer.Mankiw, Gregory N. & Taylor, Mark P. (2008), ''Macroeconomics'' (European edition), pp. 181–182 In labor economics, the "efficiency wage" hypothesis argues that wages, at least in some labour markets, form in a way that is not mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salt (union Organizing)
Salting is a labor union tactic involving the act of getting a job at a specific workplace with the intent of organizing a union. A person so employed is called a "salt". The tactic is often discussed in the United States because under US law unions may be prohibited from talking with workers in the workplace and salting is one of the few legal strategies that allow union organizers to talk with workers. Both the Knights of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World employed salts. The IWW continues to use salts, especially in their Starbucks Workers Campaign. In ''Toering Elec. Co., 351 N.L.R.B. No. 18 (Sept. 29, 2007)'', the National Labor Relations Board The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States with responsibilities for enforcing U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the Na ... (NLRB) concluded that workers in the United States can be fired if t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Democracy Now!
''Democracy Now!'' is an hour-long American TV, radio, and Internet news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman (who also acts as the show's executive producer), Juan González, and Nermeen Shaikh. The show, which airs live each weekday at 8 a.m. Eastern Time, is broadcast on the Internet and via more than 1,400 radio and television stations worldwide. The program combines news reporting, interviews, investigative journalism and political commentary, with a focus on peace activism linked to environmental justice and social justice, guided by the ethics of ecofeminism as a philosophy. It documents social movements, struggles for justice, activism challenging corporate power and operates as a watchdog outfit regarding the effects of American foreign policy. ''Democracy Now!'' views as its aim to give activists and the citizenry a platform to debate people from "The Establishment". The show is described as progressive by fans as well as critics, but Goodman rejects that label ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
