![]() ![]() Rockefeller Jr., whose union-busting mercenaries and militia opened fire with machine guns into a worker tent encampment to put down a coal strike, killing four women and 11 children. Schultz thankfully has nothing on John D. Nineteenth-century worker movements were commonly put down with egregious legal trickery or straight-up massacres. Rather than accept a modest reduction in their profits and control as an inevitability, American capitalists have typically responded to union drives with deranged hysteria. Individual workplace organizing wasn’t so bad in the days of enormous factories with tens of thousands of employees at one site, but it makes organizing huge chain stores spread all over the place very difficult.Īs historian Erik Loomis writes in his book “ A History of America in Ten Strikes,” American labor history is exceptionally violent compared to European standards. If an employer illegally threatens to fire workers who vote to organize, for instance, it generally has to pay only a tiny fine and post a notice in the break room. ![]() Above all, it set up an individual workplace standard for union elections and included relatively modest penalties for scofflaw employers. Though reforms like this were a massive improvement of workers’ rights, the National Labor Relations Act had clear weaknesses. It ensured employees have a free choice whether or not to join a union, principally by preventing employers from engaging in “unfair labor practices” to stymie organizing. Robert Wagner, D-N.Y., perhaps the best friend the working class has ever had in Congress. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which created the NRLB, was the brainchild of Sen. It’s time to give both workers and the NLRB some heavier ammunition. It also demonstrates a broader problem in American labor law: It’s not suited to widely distributed chain companies like Starbucks, and it’s largely helpless when employers choose to violate the law. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |