Author Archive
Send to a Friend
Print Version

June 9, 2003, 11:30 a.m.
The Union Way
Punishment-free violence - and the legal loophole that allows it.

rmed militants advance their agenda by bombing their opponents' property,
assaulting their persons, and even attempting to murder them. This is a case
for the Department of Homeland Security, right?

Wrong.


Though they sometimes resemble terrorists, these non-state actors enjoy
legal protection. Federal law lets labor zealots threaten and commit
violence that promotes sanctioned union goals.

In the 1973 U.S. v. Enmons case, the Supreme Court exempted unions from the
1946 Hobbs Anti-Extortion Act, which forbids the obstruction of interstate
commerce through violence or blackmail. Thanks to the Enmons loophole,
organized labor can escape federal Hobbs Act prosecution, provided its
mayhem furthers "legitimate union objectives," such as higher wages. At
least 15 states similarly shield labor brutality.

Hence, unions have rained terror upon their enemies, primarily lawful
strike-replacement workers and salaried staffers. Unfortunately, those who
feel union muscle often remain unavenged. As Stan Greer of the National
Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) explains, "the failure of
overwhelmed or politically neutralized [local] police and prosecutors to
enforce the law against union militants" leaves labor's victims hungry for
justice. Also distortive are union donations to elected officials who
supervise law enforcement.

In an August 6, 1997 letter, for instance, Houston Police Patrolmen's Union
president Terry Martin urged his 1,100 members to "help our union brothers
and sisters" in a Teamsters's strike against United Parcel Service. Martin
asked them to target UPS trucks with non-union drivers.

"Go out there and deal with the 'scabs' in the 'zero tolerance' mode that
all criminals deserve to be treated with," he wrote. "Whenever the UPS
strike ends I will let you know so that we may end our 'zero tolerance'
against the 'scabs.'"

NILRR has found that victims of union henchmen rarely find justice in local,
state, or federal criminal courts. According to media accounts NILRR has
analyzed, 2,193 incidents of union violence occurred nationally between 1991
and 2001. Only 62 individuals were arrested and 10 people punished for these
promised or actual attacks on people and property, yielding a reported
conviction rate of just 0.45 percent. (Events the media missed would boost
these figures.)

Consider these examples of union impunity:
Labor Ready manager Matthew Kahn helped guide replacement workers to
Hollander Home Fashions after its Los Angeles-area plant was struck by the
Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees in March 2001.
Ramiro Hernandez and several UNITE organizers allegedly ambushed Kahn on May
18, 2001 in Labor Ready's parking lot. Khan suffered a concussion and
multiple head lacerations. According to Women's Wear Daily, Hernandez's
lawyers said he was arrested, but all charges against him were dropped.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters was on strike against Overnite
Transportation between October 1999 and October 2002. In Overnite's
resulting RICO lawsuit against the Teamsters, Memphis-based federal District
Court Judge Bernice Donald said that 55 shootings and additional brick and
projectile attacks against Overnite's non-striking drivers were "related to
attempted murder."

20-year Overnite employee William Wonder was shot in the abdomen while
driving a company vehicle near Memphis, Tennessee on December 1, 1999.

"Overnite bears a heavy responsibility here," Teamsters president James
Hoffa Jr. said in a statement that appeared to capitalize on Wonder's
near-fatal injuries. "Overnite can end this strike at a moment's notice with
a binding agreement."

To date, no one has paid for shooting William Wonder.

As David C. Horn, vice president and general counsel of AK Steel
Corporation, testified before the House Education and Workforce Committee
last September 26, negotiations with the United Steelworkers of America and
AK's Mansfield, Ohio plant faltered in March, 1999. A company billboard soon
sported a poster that read:

Wanted - good reliable small arms, unused explosives (C-4 preferred)
names and addresses of all salary employees. Payback time!

The following September 25, Horn testified, "two, 1-gallon explosive devices
with nails are found on plant property. The fuses had been lit but failed to
detonate the devices."

After a Molotov cocktail burned beside an oxygen-hauling truck near the
facility that October 15, one of two pipe-bombs tossed into the plant
exploded the following November 11, luckily injuring nobody.

On December 6, 9, and 11, 1999, the home mailboxes of three salaried AK
employees exploded. On the 11th, another bomb damaged an S&S Transportation
truck that indirectly supplied AK scrap metal, injuring Jamie King of
Leesville, Ohio, then 22, who was asleep inside the vehicle. She temporarily
ended up on crutches.

After additional violence, a union representative anonymously told a
reporter for a July 18, 2000 story: AK's "going to get somebody killed by
not coming to the [negotiating] table."

Rep. Joe Wilson (R., South Carolina) has had enough of this. His Freedom
from Union Violence Act would end the Enmons exemption so the feds may
prosecute labor hooligans who abandon peaceful union activism for
intimidation and carnage.

"One element of terrorism is instilling fear in the general public," Wilson
says by phone. "This loophole instills fear in the workplace." Wilson, who
describes himself as "a National Review Republican," adds: "I don't take
this as an anti-union bill. It is an effort to increase safety for union and
non-union workers."

This is a perfect GOP issue. President Bush and congressional Republicans
should offer Democrats this choice: Punish those who pursue union goals by
force or polish the brass knuckles of the labor bosses who fill
Democratic-campaign coffers.

Will compassionate Democrats help stop this savagery, or will they wink at
the thuggery practiced by too many unionists? After all, labor gave
Democrats $89,882,124 for the 2002 elections, vs. $6,441,332 to Republicans
(or 93 vs. 7 percent of donations), reports the Center for Responsive
Politics' opensecrets.org campaign-finance database. Unions also gave
Democrats generous, undeclared in-kind contributions.

This would put Democrats in an incredibly tight spot out of which it would
be fascinating to watch them try to wiggle.

A vote on Rep. Wilson's measure will show Americans which members of
Congress still want federal officials to snooze while union hoodlums bust
jaws and send blood spurting across picket lines.

- Mr. Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service.

"Thom Stewart" wrote in message
...
Neal,

Bluntly; "You're full of ****!"

This is sent to you from a non-union person; ME. I was transferred to
the NW because of my feeling for a Non-union environment. We started and
ran a non-union Refinery. ARCO

You have to be out of your "Cotton Picking Mind" to think that the
Outsourcing of our Industry is happening to escape "Greed". It is being
driven by Greed. The mentality of "Higher Profits", that is the Greed.
If you can't see that, then you are one of those people "Blind because
you refuse to See!"

Be sure that you will see unions blossoming where this greed is taking
place. Management Greed is the seed of unionism. The is what they feed
on. As they feed and grow, corruption happens.

Ole Thom