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What about the heavy hand of government that keeps people from competing with unions in non-right to work states? If a union negotiates $100/hour for some pud j

What about the heavy hand of government that keeps people from competing with unions in non-right to work states? If a union negotiates $100/hour for some pud job anyone can do, and I'm willing to do it for $99, then why does the union get to keep me from taking the job? Why does someone else's wants interfere with my free negotiations with someone else? History is also replete with unions beating 'scabs' to death, like Caesar Chavez's union members beating immigrants in the desert as they tried to cross the border.

ModernMech 5y ago
Forced-union laws are authorized at the federal level by the NLRA [0] and the RLA [1]. The NLRA was passed in response to one of the incidents I left out, the Ludlow Massacre [2], when a private corporate army in cooperation with the Colorado National Guard slaughtered 21 striking workers and their families, including children. The RLA was passed in response to the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which I mentioned in my previous post. This was an uprising that spanned multiple states, and resulted in over 100 deaths. These laws which you regard as heavy handed were paid for with literal blood at the hands of the federal government and corporations. I think it's important to point out the scope and scale of these things. On one hand you have the federal government mobilizing the machines of war at the behest of, and in coordination with corporations, to slaughter workers and their families for having the audacity to ask for better working conditions. That's heavy handed. On the other side you have laws passed in response to this bloodshed that were intended to help tilt the scales in the other direction just a bit. That's not heavy handed. Maybe you feel that these kinds of restrictions are heavy and onerous, but really I don't think it's fair to draw an equivalency. As for Caesar Chavez, I don't think that's an example of heavy handed government intervention. It seems more like interclass violence, and it's sad. I will be the first to say that no one really comes out of the labor rights movement squeaky clean. But I think it's the government and corporations who have the highest body count and deserve most of the blame, because they had most of the money and power at the time. They could have chosen and afforded to not resort to violence, others in more precarious situations felt that violence was the only choice. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act_of_1935 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act_o... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre

ModernMech 5y ago

Forced-union laws are authorized at the federal level by the NLRA [0] and the RLA [1]. The NLRA was passed in response to one of the incidents I left out, the Ludlow Massacre [2], when a private corporate army in cooperation with the Colorado National Guard slaughtered 21 striking workers and their families, including children. The RLA was passed in response to the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which I mentioned in my previous post. This was an uprising that spanned multiple states, and resulted in over 100 deaths. These laws which you regard as heavy handed were paid for with literal blood at the hands of the federal government and corporations. I think it's important to point out the scope and scale of these things. On one hand you have the federal government mobilizing the machines of war at the behest of, and in coordination with corporations, to slaughter workers and their families for having the audacity to ask for better working conditions. That's heavy handed. On the other side you have laws passed in response to this bloodshed that were intended to help tilt the scales in the other direction just a bit. That's not heavy handed. Maybe you feel that these kinds of restrictions are heavy and onerous, but really I don't think it's fair to draw an equivalency. As for Caesar Chavez, I don't think that's an example of heavy handed government intervention. It seems more like interclass violence, and it's sad. I will be the first to say that no one really comes out of the labor rights movement squeaky clean. But I think it's the government and corporations who have the highest body count and deserve most of the blame, because they had most of the money and power at the time. They could have chosen and afforded to not resort to violence, others in more precarious situations felt that violence was the only choice. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act_of_1935 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Act_o... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Labor_Act [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre