An old tactic is resurfacing that union workers and workers who want unions should know that there is a well-funded, concerted effort to break unions and stop work places from becoming unionized. These companies hire busloads of scabs who will replace all types of workers like steelworkers, all types of construction workers, bus drivers, medical nurses, and fast food workers.
Sometimes it is started by hiring temporary or cutting hours in the case of the Pennsylvania steelworkers at Harrison where negotiations with Allegheny Technologies Inc. (ATI) where 2,450 workers contract expired and ATI wants to slash healthcare for active, retired and future workers, institute 12-hour shifts, cut pensions for current and future workers, reduce wages and overtime pay and to contract out more work.
When the contract expired at midnight on June 30th, ATI brought in three busloads of scabs from Storm Engineering, a strike breaking outfit. This is the old Andrew Carnegie way of strike breaking tactic in 19th century. There is no doubt that war has been declared on the workers and retired wage slaves.
The strike breaking companies that have put together replacement scabs have been growing and lawyers who work with them have been growing. In the old days, 1920s-1930s, Pinkertons, Baldwin-Felts Guards, and James A. Farley were the strike breakers.
Then in the 1960s-1970s-1980s and today, there is SCR (Schuyler, Roche & Crisham, a Chicago law firm), a private army when companies need it most. They have worked 1,000 labor disputes along with Huffmaster Association of Troy, Michigan, and U.S. Nursing Corporations with 500 scab nurses on call. However, Charles Vance’s International APT is probably the worst in these times. It was founded by Vance, who started as a police officer for the city of Oakland, California, in the 1960s.
Vance then joined the Secret Service and served in the White House for 10 years when he met and married President Gerald Ford’s daughter, Susan, in 1979. Then with two other former Secret Service agents, he formed a private security firm, which along with his marriage failed in the early 1980s. He then formed Vance International in 1984. Here was a person who had union benefits, the public paid for his training, and he turned on the toilers.
This is typical of the GOP and 1 percent and these turncoats will shoot you and probably get away with it. A good book to read to understand strike breakers is, “From Blackjacks to Briefcases” by Robert Michael Smith, his book helps you understand what you are up against.
This is what employees face today: Meet The Former Teamster Hired To Keep Guitar Center Employees From Unionizing
In secret recordings, the consultant warned employees about unions: "You get a voice, that's true. Just not your own." by Dave Jamieson
Labor Reporter, The Huffington Post
There are three phases of a general strike and unions must plan for one. Those three phases are: 1. general strike in an industry 2. general strike in a community 3. general national strike We need to move away from being on the defensive and move toward a good offensive. The American Federal of Labor (AFL) could not have held a general strike if it wanted to because they had thousands of different contracts that expired at different times of the year. This was done deliberately so that there is no consolidation of power for a general strike. Also, nowadays, there is no law agency that will support labor, except the National Labor Relations Board (NLBR), which has been under attack and in decline for years. This leaves the burden of change up to unions, and unless unions work together, little will change. We essentially have a combination of job trusts, which are not as strong as contracts, and the courts can break easily because the NLBR will be further weakened and essentially elim...
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