Arguments Against Labor Unions

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Unions Derrick Sherrill Grantham University Abstract Unions have a long history dating back to the to the merchant and craft guilds of medieval Europe. In these guilds workers would come together to share expertise, support charities, form rules for trade and commerce and lobby local governments. These are a few of the same things that Unions do today. In 1886 labor leader Samuel Gompers brought together cigar makers and various craft unions to form the American Federation of Labor one of the first major unions in the United States. Almost 70 years later the AFL merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations to form the AFL-CIO. This organization still exists today.…show more content…
A labor union is an organization of workers dedicated to protecting their interest and improving wages, hours and working conditions. You can find many unions in all types of industries from customer service to truck drivers and auto workers. Unions fight for higher wages and in general the wellbeing of their members. It is legal for employers to try to persuade employees not to unionize, but illegal for a company to attempt to prevent employees from unionizing. It is also illegal for unions to try to use lies or threats of violence to intimidate employees into joining a union. At times when unions cannot come to an agreement with an employer they have the ability to strike where workers refuse to work until there is an agreement or signed CBA. One of the most famous strikes was the Haymarket Riot. On May 1 1886 a nationwide strike began that called for an 8-hour workday. Three days later a rally was held in Chicago’s Haymarket. To protest the violence by police the previous day, due to inclement weather only a few 100 people showed up and when police moved in to disperse the crowd someone detonated a bomb and seven police were killed and 60 injured many by bullets from their fellow officers. ( J. Silverman How Unions…show more content…
The Wagner Act gave unions the right to organize workers without being harassed or intimidated by employers. It established a National Labor Relations Board, which had the responsibility to assure that elections to determine if a union would represent workers would be fair and to oversee the collective bargaining that took place between unions and management after a company was unionized. The Wagner Act allowed workers to strike, picket, and boycott business with which they were having disputes. It made illegal so-called company unions, which were employee organizations sponsored by employers. It also outlawed blacklisting, intimidation, and industrial spies. Another law that came into effect and was passed even after veto by President Truman is the Taft-Hartley Act. The Taft-Harley Act contained a number of laws and had numerous benefits for employers. It banned the closed shop, where only union members could be hired. It allowed states to pass a right to work law that instituted open shops, where workers did not have to join a union if they chose not to. Taft-Hartley allowed the federal government to call off a strike, or an employer's lockout for that matter, during an eighty-day "cooling-off period" if the national interest was
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