Posted on 03/19/2014 6:01:28 PM PDT by Kaslin
A "goon-squad" group named The Helpful Union Guys (THUG), members of Ironworkers Local 401 set fires, started riots, and took crowbars to the competition in an effort to protect union jobs.
THUGs stalked women, took baseball bats to a Toys R Us site, and even torched a Quaker meetinghouse that dared to use non-union labor.
Philly.Com reports 10 leaders of Ironworkers Local 401 charged in racketeering indictment.
They called themselves "the Helpful Union Guys" - "THUGS" for short - and woe awaited any contractor who dared cross them by hiring non-organized workers.
For, federal authorities alleged Tuesday, this "goon squad" of members of Ironworkers Local 401 set fires, started riots, and took crowbars to the competition in an effort to protect union jobs.
FBI agents arrested 10 of the union's leaders Tuesday morning, including longtime head Joseph Dougherty, in a racketeering conspiracy case that appeared to affirm long-standing business complaints over the tactics employed by Philadelphia unions.
Prosecutors alleged that Dougherty and others have cost contractors hundreds of thousands of dollars over at least three years, and were indiscriminate in choosing their targets - equally willing to break skulls with baseball bats at a Toys R Us work site in King of Prussia or torch a Quaker meetinghouse under construction in Chestnut Hill.
According to the 49-page indictment, Dougherty, 72, coordinated the campaign of sabotage and extortion, urging members to picket, threaten, and destroy the property of contractors who ignored threats against hiring nonunion employees.
At the meetinghouse work site, prosecutors said, three union members cut steel beams and set fire to a crane in December 2012, setting the project back weeks and costing the contracting firm, E. Allen Reeves Inc. of Abington, more than $500,000.
Several state representatives who received money from THUGs donated it to charity.
Proving he is willing to be bought and owned by unions, State Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Democrat running for Congress in Pennsylvania's 13th District - defended the ironworkers' contribution of $10,000 to his campaign last year.
End Union Thuggery
An article in today's Philly.Com by Katie Packer Gage says End Union Thuggery.
There is something gravely wrong in our nation when government sanctions the intimidation and bullying of one group of people by another. But that's exactly what is happening in Pennsylvania.
Sarina Rose, an executive vice president for development for Post Brothers Apartments, was stalked and harassed by union organizers. Protesters persistently followed her throughout her private life, even taking photos of her children, ages 8 and 11, at their bus stop in Abington. The situation dramatically escalated when "one union leader loudly cursed at her in front of a packed restaurant and mimicked shooting her," according to an Inquirer report last month.
What had Rose done wrong? Nothing, but she was part of a company that elected to hire a mix of union as well as nonunion labor to complete a construction job.
Unfortunately, the authorities could do nothing. In Pennsylvania, union workers are allowed to act with impunity against citizens, and it has been approved by both the legislative and judicial branches of government.
As The Inquirer reported: "Thanks to a little-known provision protecting parties in labor disputes from prosecution for stalking, harassment, and terroristic threats, Rose said, she was left powerless to stop the nearly constant baiting. The men who dogged her at all hours walked free."
In August, some members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly introduced legislation to remove the exemptions permitting certain types of harassment in labor disputes. Unfortunately, the bill has not progressed since receiving committee approval in October, in large part because the state Fraternal Order of Police came out aggressively against it.
Fortunately, we do not live in a country where veiled threats of murder, like those directed at Rose, can be made without someone standing up for the rule of law. We live in a country that requires equal protection for everyone. Pennsylvania law, however, denies such protections to victims of union thuggery under the false pretext of protecting free speech.
In March 2013, I addressed this issue in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "This special 'carve-out' grants union organizers the ability to disrupt the business of ... local employer[s], trespass on their property, and violate their personal property rights. In essence, it gives unions license to 'obsessively pursue' individuals 'to the point of harassment.'"
Pennsylvania's elected officials should immediately pass legislation removing any exemptions to stalking and intimidation laws. Protecting the state's citizens is an obligation, not a choice.
Source of Union Power
As I have mentioned on numerous occasions, unions get their power via threats, intimidation, coercion, bribery, and cash contributions to corrupt politicians.
There is no excuse for such actions from unions.
Yet, threats and even stalking of women by union thugs it is not only tolerated but protected by state statute.
As one might expect from corrupt politicians on the take, rather than change the law, legislators backed off after the biggest goon-squad of all, the Fraternal Order of Police, fought the measure.
Unions are corporations, international ones.
Penna “THUG” Ping...
Unions are collectivists (communists).
Never get tired of posting this...
I’m distressed by the fact that the emerging narrative on unions, (even among conservatives, and this is horrifying for what it means for the future of the country) seems to run like this,
“Public sector unions are REALLY bad. There are some bad things in private sector unions, too, but they aren’t pure evil like public sector unions. Private sector unions, especially at the turn of the century, were actually pretty good.”
This is pure BS! It is very, very, very scary when, even here on FR for Pete’s sake, people do not recognize the following two things:
Unions can ONLY!!!! exist because of government force applied selectively against private property owners (evil rich people),
ALL UNIONS REPRESENT GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED THEFT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY FOR THE PURPOSE OF BUYING DEMOCRAT VOTES.
I expect ignorance of this fact elsewhere, but here on FR??????????????????????
Here’s how the purely evil, anti-American, communistic, welfare-begging private sector unions work…..
I set up a business, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY (my capital and/or cash money).
I pay for the space, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay the taxes using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I supply the parts and inventory, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay for the insurance, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I pay the labor, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
I recruit, hire, and advertise, using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Oftentimes an entire life’s savings (MY PRIVATE PROPERTY) is at stake.
My future, my standing in the community, my credit, and MY PRIVATE PROPERTY are all at stake.
If I fail, I stand a good chance of being economically crippled for life.
One day, on MY PRIVATE PROPERTY that I own and acquired using MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, one of my employees, who is only in my presence because of the risk of MY PRIVATE PROPERTY, comes to me and says, “Here’s the story, Bub. From this moment forward I am going to begin organizing YOUR OTHER EMPLOYEES, to work AGAINST YOUR PRIVATE INTERESTS and do everything in our power to TAKE BY FORCE AS MUCH OF YOUR PRIVATE PROPERTY AS WE CAN GET OUR HANDS ON. We are going to spend a great deal of time and effort ORGANIZING AGAINST YOUR INTERESTS TO DO EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO GROW STRONGER AT YOUR EXPENSE, IN ORDER TO TAKE YOUR MONEY. You might as well have your business competitors working here on the shop floor. If you do not agree to our demands, we will go on strike, make your life miserable, harass and threaten and/or MURDER IN COLD BLOOD anybody you may want to hire in our place.”
Now the one and ONLY way that such a thing could EVER take place is for the government to step in and say, “Mr. Employer (rich, white, capitalist, male), if you fire this union man, you are going to jail.”
Plainly and simply, no union could ever exist in a free society. Yes, in a free society, you should be able to form and join a union of any type at any time for any purpose whatsoever. AND YOUR EMPLOYER SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIRE YOUR HAPPY ASS IN A HEARTBEAT FOR DOING SO.
FREEDOM IS A TWO WAY STREET.
I find this ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. Truly. A man strolls onto the PRIVATE PROPERTY of another man and tells him how he will employ his PRIVATE PROPERTY going forward, OR ELSE!, and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people the world over think that the first man is not only somehow better than sub-human filth, they actually see him as a hero! To me, this is one of the most perverse and mystifying examples of twisted human thinking the world has ever seen. I can’t say it enough; you come onto my PRIVATE PROPERTY, and bargain with me, using the THREAT OF GOVERNMENT SANCTIONED FORCE, about how much of my PRIVATE PROPERTY you will allow me to keep! And this is somehow acceptable?
As I say, even conservatives, (who have escaped the liberal brainwashing that begins when we are still in the womb on guns, race, US history, etc., etc., and do not subscribe to the easy notions that are so readily picked up by the unthinking) seem to fall for this trap. Seem to believe that…
“The work place is filled with mean managers and mean bosses who were/are really mean to kids and women and workers and paid them pennies instead of the legitimate millions that they were REALLY worth, making evil white male capitalists even richer, and they enslaved them and coerced them and made them work real hard and were really, really mean. THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for the government stepping in and saving women and children from mean bosses and really mean white capitalist men.”
Needless to say, each and every single word of that narrative is as totally false and ridiculous as the liberal narrative on US history, or bad guns, or evil white men. If you know people who believe that stuff, you cannot help them. DO NOT waste your breath on them, DO NOT do their research for them; have them read Sowell or Williams or von Hayek, or von Mises, or Friedman, or even Stossel when they write of “sweatshops” either in today’s 3rd world or in America at the turn of the century.
Is PA one of those states where decent folks are not allowed to exercise their second amendment rights?
It's the mix that is deadly. My dad ran a non-union construction shop in MI (in the 70's), and he refused contracts where there would be union subcontractors on the job. He didn't want our stuff vandalized. Without fail, the unionistas would "accidentally" break things.
Totally looks like...
Just pulled up your post on my Blackberry which showed only the top picture and the first thought was “how are they different than angry muslims?”
If you see posts of interest to Pennsylvanians, please ping me.
Thanks!
Thanks carriage_hill for the heads up
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The gaping mouth would make a splendid aiming point.
The first photo: Sub-human filth with a 5th grade education and a serious addiction to Bud Light, demanding the property of others.
The second photo: hairy peter puffers who’ve never experienced the wonders of Taco Bell, flush toilets, or the Cadillac Eldorado.
Pardons from the White House are on the way?
Pennsylvania is a shall-issue state.
Highest NRA membership as a percentage of population in the US, and second only to Texas in total members. The PA version of the Second Amendment existed before the Federal Bill of Rights and has persisted through all revisions in essentially the same form. 500K long guns sold per year, roughly 1.5+ million hunters. Shall Issue state. Honors the Shall Issue Laws of other states. RKBA is not the issue here, unions are.
“We are the goon squad and we’re coming to town...BEEP BEEP!”
The only question is...In what fashion will we beat them back?
Turn to the Left!
“Highest NRA membership as a percentage of population in the US, and second only to Texas in total members. The PA version of the Second Amendment existed before the Federal Bill of Rights and has persisted through all revisions in essentially the same form.”
Time for those 2nd amendment rights to be exercised...
I don’t know...I say turn to the RIGHT.
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