Union violence refers to violence committed by unions or union members to achieve political objectives, particularly during labor disputes. When union violence has occurred, it has frequently been in the context of industrial unrest. Violence has ranged from isolated acts by individuals to wider campaigns of organized violence aimed at furthering union goals within an industrial dispute.

Anti-union violence has also occurred frequently in the context of industrial unrest, and has often involved the collusion of management and government authorities, private agencies, or citizens' groups in organising violence against unions and their members.

Overview

Protests and verbal abuse are routinely aimed against union members or replacement workers who cross picket lines ("blacklegs" or "scabs") during industrial disputes. The inherent aim of a union is to create a labor monopoly so as to balance the monopsony a large employer enjoys as a purchaser of labor. Strikebreakers threaten that goal and undermine the union's bargaining position, and occasionally this erupts into violent confrontation, with violence committed either by, or against, strikers. In 1894, some workers declared:

<blockquote>

..."the right of employers to manage their own business to suit themselves," is fast coming to mean in effect nothing less than a right to manage the country to suit themselves.</blockquote>

Occasionally, violent disputes occur between unions, when one union breaks another's strike.

Research on union violence

Researchers in industrial relations, criminology, and wider cultural studies have examined violence by workers or trade unions in the context of industrial disputes. US and Australian government reports have examined violence during industrial disputes.

By country

Australia

  • 1996 - On 19 August 1996, Australian unionists physically broke into the Australian Parliament and fought Australian Federal Police during the 1996 Parliament House Riot.

Spain

  • 1917-1923 - Pistolerismo

United Kingdom

  • 1926 - In the context of the 1926 United Kingdom general strike, striking miners derailed The Flying Scotsman on May 10.
  • 1972 - British Trade Union representative Ricky Tomlinson, now best known as an actor, was convicted for a two-year term for threatening construction workers.
  • 1984 - Taxi driver David Wilkie was killed by striking miners while driving a non-striking worker during the NUM UK mining strike of 1984-85.

United States

  • 1986 - During protests by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547 against workers replacing union jobs, picketers engaged in scuffles, chanting and sounding gunshots. In 1999, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the union had engaged in "ongoing acts of intimidation, violence, destruction of property", awarding the plaintiff $212,500 in punitive damages.
  • 1997 - On August 7, 1997, Teamsters Orestes Espinosa, Angel Mielgo, Werner Haechler, Benigno Rojas, and Adrian Paez beat, kicked, and stabbed a UPS worker (Rod Carter) who refused to strike, after Carter received a threatening phone call from the home of Anthony Cannestro Sr., president of Teamsters Local 769.

See also

  • Anti-union violence
  • Labor spies
  • Union busting
  • Union organizer
  • Union violence in the United States

People

  • Norris J. Nelson, Los Angeles City Council member, commenting on union violence
  • Joseph Yablonski

References

  • BBC report on arrests in the case of Chea Vichea
  • The Independent report on the murder of Keith Frogson