crossposted from unbossed
Ah! Springtime and time for Representative Joe Wilson (R-S.C) to engage in the annual rite of introducing the Freedom From Union Violence Act, just as he introduced it in the 110th Congress and the 109th Congress and just as it has been reintroduced year after year.
FUVA is a major initiative of the National Right To Work Commitee. Its position on the need for FUVA may be found here.
Their argument is that unions are violent organizations whose modus operandi is threats and violence against those who stand in the way of union bosses. What FUVA would do, they say, is close a loophole in the Hobbes Anti-Racketeering Act.
The Hobbs Act makes it a crime to engage in extortion.
The Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. 1951, provides as follows:
(a) Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires so to do, or commits or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
(b) As used in this section --
(1) The term "robbery" means the unlawful taking or obtaining of personal property from the person or in the presence of another, against his will, by means of actual or threatened force, or violence, or fear of injury, immediate or future, to his person or property, or property in his custody or possession, or the person or property of a relative or member of his family or of anyone in his company at the time of the taking or obtaining.
(2) the term "extortion" means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.
The Hobbs Act can apply to unions now if a union uses strikes, threats, or other actions to extort money. In the case of US v. Enmons, the Supreme Court held that acts by unions that involve violence but in the context of legitimate actions, such as a strike for better working conditions, do not violate the Hobbs because they are not acts of extortion. In Enmons, the union was not well behaved to say the least, but it was not engaging in extortion.
The Enmons case did not mean that unions get off free from any punishment if it commits of acts of violence. Acts of violence would be actions that are violations of other statutes, and would punished under them.
In understanding Enmons, it is important to keep in mind that what the Hobbs Act outlaws is extortion, not just any bad act. Federal law, in particular the National Labor Relations Act, says that collective bargaining and strikes in support of collective bargaining goals are legal and protected. Therefore, since collective bargaining is purpose that is not extortion, one of the key elements of a Hobbs Act violation is not met.
More on Enmons at wikipedia.
Is FUVA FUBAR?
What Wilson and his allies would like is to allow the Hobbes Act to apply to actions by unions to apply pressure to get better wages and working conditions for workers.
The point is: In their view collective bargaining and strikes are extortion and should be punished. They like extending the Hobbes Act to union collective bargaining and strikes, because the punishment is very high and could apply even for relatively trivial matters. This would weaken unions in many ways.
Now, they would never get very far with this argument if they came right out and admitted that they want to destroy unions and collective bargaining. As a result, the main part of their claim is that union violence is an enormous and growing threat.
FUVA supporters have, however, greatly exaggerated the existence of union violence.
The purpose of the bill, explains Michael Gottesman, a law professor at Georgetown University, is to exact severe penalties for conduct already a crime in every state. "It’s a classic showboating effort that would not add anything to the law other than imposing the death penalty in cases of union violence that result in death, which is not the case in any state law. Moreover, it’s totally one-sided since it doesn’t address violence by agents of the employer."
Gottesman testified at a Senate hearing on the bill, one of two unfriendly witnesses. The other, Julius Getman, a law professor at the University of Texas–Austin, sees an even more dangerous precedent. "Proponents’ definition of violence is so broad that it would include the tactics of the civil rights movement," Getman warns. "Behind all the rhetoric about ‘crime’ is an assault on the right to strike."
Getman’s concern is borne out by FUVA’s language, which broadens the definition of extortion to include "the obtaining of property ... by wrongful use of fear not involving force or violence." He notes proponents’ liberal use of the term "violence," applied to egg throwing, spitting, shoving, chanting slogans, raising fists, glaring, and kicking tires, among other nefarious deeds documented in Union Violence Lookout, a publication of the NRWC’s research institute.
The National Labor Relations Act protects the right to strike and to engage in collective bargaining,
It is declared to be the policy of the United States to eliminate the causes of certain substantial obstructions to the free flow of commerce and to mitigate and eliminate these obstructions when they have occurred by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self- organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment or other mutual aid or protection. . . . Sec. 13. Right to strike preserved Nothing in this Act, except as specifically provided for herein, shall be construed so as either to interfere with or impede or diminish in any way the right to strike or to affect the limitations or qualifications on that right.
But FUVAs proponents want to take the rights away - or at least weaken them. They want to repeal the protections for collective bargaining and strike.
If you want to see the reality of violence during strikes, check out events in the Detroit Newspaper and other strikes here.
The real question is, given that it already against the law to commit acts of violence and to commit extortion what is the point of FUVA?
Why do its supporters introduce it year after year?
Or just pointless, except for effectively repealing parts of the NLRA?