EFCA Opponent Runs Ad Suggesting Unions Gag Employees With Duct Tape

The Plum Line:

A top union is demanding that an Arkansas TV station yank a new ad being run by the "Dr. Evil" of pro-business lobbyists that depicts workers as mobbed up goons to turn Senator Blanche Lincoln against the Employee Free Choice Act, labor's top priority.

Read the whole story: The Plum Line

Comments

[ctman47]

Joe the Mobster?
Are we really as stupid as these media consultants think we are?

[Jack Barron]

Italian stereotypes, YAY!!

[noaxe397]

Even the language used to describe unions implies a certain thugishness compared to the language used to describe management.

Labor has bosses, corporations have executives.
Labor makes demands, corporations make offers.
Union members work in shops, management in offices.

Regarding EFCA, did not the Wagner Act permit this as a method for joining a union, in addition to the secret ballot?

[sweepstop]

True or not, thats probably a pretty effective ad...espec­ially because if the unions managed to get it knocked off the air, it would simply reinforce the message that they're trying to send.

[KLordsha]

10 bucks says this guy has a paid staffer named Tony the Wrench...

[sueinmn]

Pardon my spelling, my fingers really get emotional over the EFCA fight and all the myths and lies people believe!

[LinkSync]

Duct tape would be an easier option than fear of being fired for wanting a union.

Remeber that the USA is in itself our very 1st Union.

You are a Union Worker only you won;t vote to support your own benefit.

Stupid.

SINGLE PAYER!

[in4success]

the italian community should go batsh^t

[sueinmn]

So the business community should be allowed slave labor as we are headed for? This China, Mexico or America?

Some republicans want to abolish minimum wage. Can you afford to live on less, much less if they had their way? Own a car, rent or own your home, have taxes, water, insurance, heat, electricity, food, etc. Have kids? Can you afford to live on less which is the way we are heading?

[RightWingMarine]

if a higher min wage could reduce poverty why not set the min at $100/hr? then we could all be rich, right?

[Prattvictory2]

How many people have died or been injured due to union thugs compared to unsafe work conditions?

[sueinmn]

Unions were the push to create OSHA. Occupational Safety and Health.

[Tracy Hale]

Wow...you'­ll believe anything, won't you?!

[sueinmn]

This is true! many die in non union shops because of lack of safety. Chemicals, open equipment (no safety guards) lack of training. I watched a man fall into a cheese vat and the largest piece left was a part of a finger! Kid you not, pretty sad deal. Osha came in and found all kinds of saftey violations, like no guard over this huge vat with a mixing machine going. Ive seen a company using a glue to press boards together (semi beds) and it burnt my eyes to walk past it. so many miscarriages happen at this place!! Im an electrician and get called into some of these places for work.

[sueinmn]

[revious post was for unsafe no union factories. Dont know any union THUGS . I know many business THUGS!

[Sean Tisdall]

From Wikipedia: "Historically, some employers have attempted to break union strikes by force. One of the most famous examples of this occurred during the Homestead Strike of 1892. Industrialist Henry Clay Frick sent private security agents from the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to break the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers strike at a Homestead, Pennsylvania steel mill. Two strikers were killed, 12 wounded, along with two Pinkertons killed and 11 wounded. In the aftermath, Frick was shot twice in the neck and then stabbed twice by Alexander Berkman, surviving the attack. Generally, though, Carnegie and J.P. Morgan, as well as other Capitalists, have used the US Military to gun down and kill strikers, such as in the Seattle General Strike, the Haymarket Massacre, the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934, during the Oaxacan unrest of 2006, the Toledo Autolite Strike, the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, among dozens and dozens of other strikes."

Usually the thugs aren't on the union side. But at any rate deaths from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire killed 146 garment workers. The garment workers' strike two years earlier does not mention deaths, but Wikipedia has this to add:

"The strike was a violent one. Police routinely arrested picketers for trivial or imaginary offenses while employers hired local thugs to beat them as police looked the other way."

[Adartist777]

Wasn't there an incident in a West Virginia coal mining town where company thugs burned a building where workers were having a Christmas party with their families? I understand women and children burned to death as the company thugs watched the building burn. This, to discourage a union.

I worked for a newspaper that had an insane publisher. One morning, the sales department came in for work as usual and around 11AM, their supervisor passed out pink slips to everybody with no warning or notice of the lay off. They were all gone by 1PM. The same publisher fired a talented editor over a suggestion made on what to place on the front page one night. A suggestion! A group of journalists banded together at a satellite office and contacted the Newspaper Guild to organize. They were summarily fired. They sued and ended up settling with the publishing company. Union busters were brought in from California to set up mandatory anti-union meetings for the next month. The meetings were on a daily basis and lasted two hours. At this point, people were frightened for their jobs and the union did not prevail.

The issue wasn't higher pay or better benefits, but job security. Upper management was unstable and job loss could have occurred over nothing. This paper ended up being sold to another media company shortly after the organization attempt.

[sueinmn]

Organised labor= unions. workers rights, fair treatment, a collective voice to discuss with the employer wages, consitions, terms and grievances. Better communities and better trained employees. Job security and usually a recognised type of seniority.

CEOs of business NEVER work a day with out an agreement quaranteed to them. Is an agreement any less entitled to you also?

Chamber of Commerse= organised business

Are they any different than a union? Union for workers, chamber for business. Both organised entities to work on the behalf who who they represent.

Unions are only as strong as the people in them, YOU vote your officials, you vote all decisions
You stand united as one and you are strong. present "right to work" laws give you absolutely no protection from unfair treatment, unfair firings, what color shoes you wear! You can be fired with out reason! Go pee the wrong way and you can be fired.

[PStefano]

Union dues are not given to candidates only COPE money can be given to candidates. COPE is a voluntary contribution. Try a new one-liner.

[PStefano]

My comment stands proven, ethnic stereotypes, specific wording, etc. If the union way is so bad why are unions only weakened by offshoring and scare tactics such as firing employees trying to organize. Continue to slur, you expose the weakness of your own argument as well as the people you truly are.

[HST]

Let's see big banks spend all their money betting on derivatives get a huge pile of money from the government and turn around spend it on huge bonuses for the people who tanked the economy.
Yep, it's the workers who are "mobbed up" goons. How dare they work for a living much less organize themselves -simply shocking!

[sdskelton03]

A better ad would have the union thugs showing up at his door asking him if he wants to join their union.

[zippywpinhead]

what union thugs?

the one in wingnut myths?

[Tuckerndfw]

Let me see if I have this right:

It's unpatriotic to support the American mafia, but it's patriotic to support the Chinese mafia.

Arkansas is hq for Walmart, the Chinese mafia's number one outlet.

We need to support our own mafia.