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PaperclipPerfector  2yr ago (text post)   29620 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 11, 2023

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To an outside this seems absolutely insane.

It seems insane from the inside, too. I'm told you basically need a whole history course to figure out how we got to this weird place where "firing someone for refusing to do their job" and "employees agreeing to go on a 'wildcat' strike without The Union's approval" are both illegal.

I haven't taken that history course myself, so best I can do is quote from some old discussions I read online, without endorsing their accuracy:

Back in the day when labor struggles involved a lot more militancy, US unions very much did want workers to join, and sometimes their militant arms would clash as the organizations fought over members. And over other things, like some being (alleged) “company unions” that did not represent the interests of the workers.

So the US govt passed a ‘one union per industry; employers may only bargain with that one union’ union-unifying law to prevent [in?]fighting between the North Side Steelworkers Union and the South Side Steelworkers Union.

This had the side effect of massively empowering the resulting megacorporate-unions. So the US govt passed some laws limiting union bargaining power - in different ways, like making it illegal for the mega-unions to strike so much. Unsurprisingly, these laws had unintended consequences and overshot, so the government passed some more laws to empower unions in different ways again. Along the way, war rationing and wage controls and employer-provided healthcare-default happened, upsetting the bargaining positions some more, and guess what the US government did? That’s right, passed some federal regulations to fix it!

(This did not fix it.)

Or, with a handful of references:

Under the Wagner Act of 1935 (NLRA) ...

An employee cannot, for instance, join a competing union or negotiate separately from the union.

...

...striking employees are cannot legally be fired. Even if they are permanently replaced during the strike (which is greatly restricted and doesn’t get rid of the union), they must go to the top of the list to be taken back on when the strike is over.

...

  • Strikers/picketers are allowed to trespass on employer property, and employers are barred from seeking legal redress against this. Under the Norris-La Guardia Act of 1932 (Anti-Injunction Act).
  • In non-right-to-work states, unions can demand that all employees must join or pay “agency fees” to the union as a condition of employment. “Right-to-work” means they can’t do that, which was left to the states as a compromise, as part of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Employers are barred under the Norris-La Guardia Act from requiring the reciprocal: not joining a union as a condition of employment.
  • Under U.S. v. Enmons (1973), union violence is exempt from the Hobbs Act of 1934 (Anti-Racketeering Act), prohibiting the obstruction of interstate commerce by robbery or extortion.

I like the comedy of the UC Santa Cruz graduate student union wildcat strike of 2019 and 2020. They illegally wildcat striked against their recently approved union contract that most of them voted against, but was forced onto them by union leadership getting other UCs to approve it. So a majority of union members at all UCs approved it and UCSC union members cannot negotiate a new contract just for them. The dean's office correctly stated that would be illegal and there will be no negotiation with the graduate students. The union approved of a contract against their will and that is what they shall get.

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