By Kelly O'Connell ——Bio and Archives--March 13, 2011
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The manifest intent of the association is, to induce all those engaged in the same occupation to become members of it. Such a purpose is not unlawful. It would give them a power which might be exerted for useful and honorable purposes, or for dangerous and pernicious ones. If the latter were the real and actual object, and susceptible of proof, it should have been specially charged. Such an association might be used to afford each other assistance in times of poverty, sickness and distress; or to raise their intellectual, moral and social condition; or to make improvement in their art; or for other proper purposes.And yet, the problem with subsequent union activities is they very often broke both the spirit and letter of the law. Many radical attempts to unionize America were tried, and most rejected, including overt Marxism associated with European efforts. But one survived:
Eventually, one form of unionism emerged as a survivor...Experiments with political radicalism gave way to so-called "business unionism," the notion that unions must pursue immediate, material gain for members within the free-enterprise system. The underlying idea was to accept the capitalist wage, price, and political system and achieve marginal gains for members within it. Consequently, the ambitions of social visionaries and leftist radicals who saw unions as a vehicle for radical change gradually fell by the wayside.Such influential leaders as Samuel Gompers and his American Federation of Labor (AFL) were effective, although only half a million Americans were union members by the turn of the 20th century, representing a mere 2% of the labor force. But because of WWI, unions grew more powerful, achieving a high-water mark of 12% of the workforce. Yet, membership later ebbed back down to 6%. After WWI, the Great Depression set the stage for a revival of unions, and six great labor Acts were passed to help save the movement: Davis-Bacon (1931), Norris-LaGuardia (1932), National Industrial Recovery Act (1933), Wagner National Labor Relations Act (1935), Walsh-Healey (1936), and the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) (aka the "minimum wage law."). Unfortunately, this misbegotten wave of legislation was born of illiterate economics and ended up empowering unions while permanently hobbling American markets. Membership fluctuated, then fell:
According to OECD data, estimated union density in the United States was 30.9% in 1960, 22.3% in 1980, 12.8% in 2000 and 11.6% in 2007. While the overall rate of decline has recently slowed, the decline in private sector union membership has been partially concealed by union growth in the public sector.So, why does membership continue to drop today, not just in the US, but across the Western world? Because the purposes of the labor movement--higher wages, more job security, and better working conditions--have been so fully met through legal means, the movement became redundant. And now the US union movement is so insulated and intoxicated by its self-pitying and overly dramatic rhetoric, it is utterly disconnected from the reality all non-union Americas interact with, daily. And the only unions growing are public, not private.
The UAW refused to accept pay parity with non-union foreign automakers by the end of 2009. That pay scale--among the best hourly wages in America at $26-an-hour plus benefits, totaling $48-an-hour--was not good enough for the coddled union, who demanded that their current $73-an-hour contract package be paid until it expires in 2011.In a nutshell, Detroit is being reclaimed by nature, as folks farm inside the city limits, and deer and raccoons are regularly sighted. Detroit failed because of liberal policies, but the overall act of the unions blindly demanding more than the Big Three could afford in wages, medical care and pensions essentially bankrupted the city. The goose that laid the golden eggs was killed, and now Detroit, with over 80,000 empty houses, many selling for a single dollar, returns to its pre-civilized state. The unions that killed Detroit, and drove America's auto industry into the arms of foreigners are the same leftist, Marxist-influenced unions which now threaten the rest of America's economic vitality, as well.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and the Service Employees International Union are as tight as Heidi Klum and a new pair of jeans. You don't think about one without the other. You also don't talk about either organization without mention of Wade Rathke, co-founder of ACORN and founder of SEIU Local 100 in New Orleans. Rathke...continues to run Local 100, as well as ACORN International, recently renamed Community Organizations International.In other words, Marxist ACORN founder Wade Rathke, who visited Obama more than any other person, still runs a criminally corrupt union organization apparently designed for voter fraud
The BP clean-up effort in the Gulf of Mexico is hampered by the Jones Act requiring all vessels working in U.S. waters to be American-built, and American-crewed...For Obama, politics always comes first: "The explanation of Obama's reluctance to seek this remedy is his cozy relationship with labor unions. . . 'The unions see it [not waiving the act] as...protecting jobs. They hate when the Jones Act gets waived.'
As New York City finishes cleaning up the mess of the recent debilitating blizzard, it also faces allegations union workers entrusted with cleaning up the mess of snow decided to stage a slowdown as the blizzard hit. The plan was to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts, several sources and a city lawmaker told the New York Post.
"Syndicalism" is associations of workingmen for furtherance of common economic interests. Three influences combined in formation of this new system: revolutionary unionism, Anarchism, and Socialism. The primary object of revolutionary Syndicalism is destruction of the existing order of society, expropriation and abolition of capital, and elimination of the entire system of wages. Its basic doctrine is the teaching of the class struggle. The State must be violently combatted even when it enacts measures beneficial to the labourer, since all reforms are deceptive unless forced by the syndicalist workers themselves. There are two divisions of mankind, employers and the employed, and anything which can foment bitterness and disagreement between these two is a triumph for the worker. All this is pure Marxian doctrine.
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Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico.