Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Union busting is a range of activities undertaken to disrupt or weaken the power 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.
Union busting is a term used by labor organizations and trade unions to describe the activities that may be undertaken by employers, their proxies, workers and in certain instances states and governments usually triggered by events such as picketing, card check, worker organizing, and strike actions. [1]
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.
Union organizer Frank Little was pulled from his bed and lynched in 1917 because of his union activities.. Historically, violence against unions has included attacks by detective and guard agencies, such as the Pinkertons, Baldwin Felts, Burns, or Thiel detective agencies; citizens groups, such as the Citizens' Alliance; company guards; police; national guard; or even the military.
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.
A captive audience meeting is a mandatory meeting during working hours, organized by an employer with the purpose of discouraging employees from organizing or joining a labor union. [1] [2] It is considered a union-busting tactic.
Union members rally to reject union busting in New Orleans (2019) Most labor unions in the United States are members of one of two larger umbrella organizations: the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) or the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), which split from the AFL–CIO in 2005–2006. [47]
Union violence in the United States is physical force intended to harm employers, managers, replacement workers, union abstainers, sympathizers of the prior groups, or their families. On various occasions violence has been committed by unions or union members during labor disputes in the United States.