Posted on 09/08/2015 7:39:10 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
As labor union leaders high five each other this weekend over their ancestors’ creation of the Labor Day holiday more than a century ago, we would do well to remember a bit of their history that neither they, nor their admirers in academe, may want you to know.
Forty two years ago, the Supreme Court exempted unions from prosecution of acts of violence. “That exemption stems from the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Anti-Racketeer¬ing Act of 1943, known as the Hobbs Act,” Kevin Mooney wrote in a study published by the Capital Research Center two years ago. “That law forbids the obstruction of interstate commerce by robbery or extortion.”
“It’s the main federal law against extortion (economic gain through violence). Unions’ exemp¬tion is rooted in the 1973 Enmons case, in which the Supreme Court ruled that unions are exempt because the law simply doesn’t apply when unions are seeking ‘legitimate’ union objectives.”
“The case involved three members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) who were indicted for firing high-powered rifles at three utility company transformers. The oil that drained from one of the transformers blew up a substation. The U.S. District Court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, dismissed the charges against the IBEW, arguing that the actions were not illegal since they were done to obtain legitimate union objectives. Writing for the 5-4 majority, Justice Potter Stewart put the onus back on Congress for creating a loophole in the Hobbs Act.”
“He wrote that, because the Hobbs Act bans the ‘wrongful’ use of force in obtaining wages and other things of value, it does not ban such actions unless they are wrongful. Since unions can legitimately strike to ob¬tain higher pay and benefits, unions have a ‘legitimate claim’ to those improvements, and since those claims are legitimate, the Hobbs Act does not apply. Dissenting from the Enmons decision, Justice William O. Douglas, a liberal but a staunch civil libertarian, objected that ‘The Court today achieves by interpretation what those who were opposed to the Hobbs Act were unable to get Congress to do.’”
“Thousands of violent acts have gone unpun¬ished as a result of Enmons. For example, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research identified 8,799 incidents of union-related violence between 1975 and 1998. Less than 3% of these incidents resulted in convictions, according to the Institute.”
And we’ll see how the GOP candidates - especially the leading candidate - handle this one. Methinks some will fumble big time...
Everybody sing!
Look for...
the union lay-bull...
and make sure you’re buying...
something...
else...
I wonder how many people, especially those in their 20-30’s associate Labor Day with unions?
Not by way of exception, but as a practical matter, the union element has been irrelevant to me. Labor Day has always represented the start of the school year, end of Summer, and most importantly. . . FOOTBALL.
You know Trump is a big fan of unions.
As I’m sure he must have said at some time or another, the Head Thug of the AFL/CIO “...is a nice guy! He’s a friend of mine!”
Yep, especially when he can crony with them to get deals done......and he's also a big fan of big government all too often - and some other liberal tendencies too. That's why this will be a BIG TEST. Maybe not today, but at some point...
Definitely he is in bed with them, in fact he will make everyone join the unions if he gets to 42% in the XYZPDQ poll before the fourth moon during the fifty six week of the twice removed once exalt pagan holiday of “ha are do”.
All the union labels say “made in China” and I place some of the blame on the unions.
Most casino workers are unionized so he has had to deal with them. There are a few casino that are not unionized, the Venetian for one, but they have had a lot of trouble with the union thugs.
The law needs to be amended to cover union violence explicitly.
we know one of them has been fairly clear, although it is remarkable, given the heat, to put it mildly, that Scott Walker got to see how moderate his law was.
For once I agree with Justice Douglas.
Walker and Cruz are the two slam dunks to get this one right.
Huckabee and Santorum and Trump are the most likely to get it wrong. Well Kasich too perhaps. I hope none of them get it wrong, but some might.
Didn’t Kasich already cave on right to work?
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