I defend this because the union system, where the government mandates companies engage in exclusive bargaining with unions, is illiberal, unfair and economically destructive. What's fair is the right to quit. Nothing beyond that. No one is entitled to a job that some other party furnishes, and to effectively force that company, via labor regulations, mandated negotiation advantages for unions, etc, to provide them a job with the terms they want.
With government mandates against them, Amazon is fighting with both hands tied behind its back, and it's only a matter of time before social activists will succeed in putting the company's US based sites under the control of unions, as we saw happen to the Big Three automakers.
In comparison to what Amazon is up against, which is blatant violations of its contract liberty by the state and its apparatus of violence (the courts, police and prisons that compel compliance with state injunctions), these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign.
The existing government mandates - aka "laws" - exist as a compromise. They prohibit a company like Amazon from engaging in certain practices, and in exchange, some union practices are prohibited.
I'm fine with dismantling all laws limiting corporate interactions SO LONG AS all laws limiting unions are similarly lifted.
Get rid of Taft-Hartley, and bring back "jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns." (quoting Wikipedia).
Commonwealth v. Hunt shows unions don't require enabling laws. The economic power of the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society came from the ability to quit - collectively.
> these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign.
I'll counter when a decidedly not benign - the Ludlow massacre, where companies worked with the government to attack striking coal workers, including firing MACHINE GUNS at them and their families.
That's literally the origin of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.
The law that you seem so much against.
> blatant violations of its contract liberty
The Wikipedia entry for the NLRA specifically points out how it's meant to support contract liberty.
] Under section 1 (29 U.S.C. § 151) of the Act, the key principles and policy findings on which the Act was based are explained. The Act aims to correct the "inequality of bargaining power between employees who, according to the Act's proponents, do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract and employers who are organized in the corporate or other forms of ownership association".
>>The existing government mandates - aka "laws" - exist as a compromise. They prohibit a company like Amazon from engaging in certain practices, and in exchange, some union practices are prohibited.
There is nothing of note that unions could do, that isn't enabled by contract-liberty-violating labor regulations and wouldn't break the law. Picketing Amazon's premises, and beating up replacement workers, as the illegal strikes of the past did, was justifiably punished by the state before the labor regulation era, and for that reason, unions had very little power.
All the power they acquired came from laws that abridged the freedom to contract.
>>The economic power of the Boston Journeymen Bootmaker's Society came from the ability to quit - collectively.
Industry would gladly give unions the power to collectively quit, if it meant they too would have their contract liberty restored, so they could choose to not employ unionized workers, or to replace them without government punishing them.
>>I'll counter when a decidedly not benign - the Ludlow massacre, where companies worked with the government to attack striking coal workers, including firing MACHINE GUNS at them and their families.
This leaves out a seminally important precursor to the attack on the striker's camp:
>>When leasing the sites, the union had selected locations near the mouths of canyons that led to the coal camps in order to block any strikebreakers' traffic.[17] The company hired the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency to protect the new workers and harass the strikers.
"block any strikebreakers' traffic" means viciously attack and sometimes murder strikebreakers, who were there to replace them.
The strikers were a violent force, engaging in aggression. The only basis for their actions is a victimhood narrative that argues the employer and replacement workers do not have a right to their contract liberty when workers strike. If you accept this illiberal premise, then of course any violence that strikers engage in is justified, and any response is a "massacre".
Speaking of precursors, your own citation [17] points out the dead strikebreaker was found AFTER company guards had used the machine gun on the Death Special to kill a miner and injure two kids.
] Through various agencies the company was able to hire men to take a more aggressive stance against the striking workers, armed guards were supplied to harass strikers and union organisers. An armoured car with a mounted machine gun was even built which was appropriately named the ‘Death Special’ by the company guards. As tensions escalated between CF+I and the strikers, miners dug protective pits beneath their tents to shield themselves and their families against random sniping and machine gun fire from the company guards. On October 17th the ‘Death Special’ was used to attack the Forbes tent colony resulting in the death of one miner. A young girl was shot in the face and another boy’s legs riddled with machine gun bullets also. Confrontations between striking miners and scab workers were also resulting in additional deaths. On October 28th the Governor of Colorado, Elias M Ammons called out the National Guard to take control of the situation.
] The miners however, persevered. Union members and organisers were kidnapped and beaten, shots being fired into the camps from strike-breakers and the National Guardsmen were a constant occurrence and the harsh winter was taking its toll. Worried about the continuing cost of keeping the National Guard in the field, Governor Ammons accepted an offer from the Rockefeller family to put their men in National Guard uniforms.
] On March 10th the body of a strike-breaker was found near railroad tracks near the Forbes tents and the National Guard’s General Chase ordered the colony to be destroyed. The strike was reaching a climax, and National Guardsmen were ordered to evict the remaining tent colonies around the mines, despite them being on private property leased by the UMWA.
] Ludlow was the largest of the colonies, and on the morning of April 20th 1914, troops fired into the camp with machine guns, anyone who was seen moving in the camp was targeted. The miners fired back, and fighting raged for almost fourteen hours.
The mine owners were an even more violent force, also engaging in aggression. The Pinkerton detective agency is still prohibited by law from doing business with the government of the United States or of the District of Columbia.
> any response is a "massacre".
It's been widely called the Ludlow Massacre for over a century.
Your putting words into my mouth means you would rather use personal attacks than talk about the real issue, which is that the government laws are supposed to take the edge off both union AND corporate power.
If you take away laws that support union power without also taking away laws that prohibit otherwise legal union power, like the ability to negotiate for a closed shop, then you aren't actually in favor of contract liberty but of corporate power.
That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!!
P.S.: The US big three automakers went down because of complete management failure. They continued to build cars that nobody outside the US wants (seriously go to any other western nation and look how many US cars you see), and then were surprised that US customers started to want superior Japanese and European cars. VW in Germany is highly unionised and they are the second largest car manufacturer in the world.
>>That can be argued for pretty much any government activity. So by your logic lets abolish police, firefighters, the army. Why can't I choose my own police to protect me? That's a blatant violation of my contract liberty!!
I am not against government. The US had a government, with police, firefighters, an army and roads, in 1890, and no labor regulations that violated the freedom to contract, because during the Lochner era, the Supreme Court consistently struck down such laws as violating the Constitution's guarantee of substantive due process.
That you equate the provision of government services that are pure public goods, with restrictions that prevent people from exercising their contract freedom, shows you fundamentally don't understand the objection to these types of laws, or what "contract liberty" even means. I imagine you see "contract liberty" as synonymous with "anarchy".
Try to see it from the other side. The side where “contract liberty” is just a buzzword, and the real situation of real people in real life is horrendous and sickening. No amount of philosophical maneuvering is going to stop us criticizing (real and substantive) abuse and mistreatment of fellow human beings.
If you're interested in maximum freedom of choice, didn't people clearly choose that unions are supported, in large enough numbers to get it written into lawbooks? Or are businesses somehow more free than people, so laws don't apply to them?
>>The Wikipedia entry for the NLRA specifically points out how it's meant to support contract liberty.
I think you're confusing the freedom of the majority to repress the rights of the minority, with "contract freedom", i.e. the right to free assocation.
The right to free association and the right of the majority (power holders) to repress the minority (employees), yes.
And yes, I am in favor of limiting that. It has been used for many, many abuses through history. "Free association" really only exists when both sides have equal power, and oh boy is that not the case in most cases.
With government mandates against them, Amazon is fighting with both hands tied behind its back, and it's only a matter of time before social activists will succeed in putting the company's US based sites under the control of unions, as we saw happen to the Big Three automakers.
In comparison to what Amazon is up against, which is blatant violations of its contract liberty by the state and its apparatus of violence (the courts, police and prisons that compel compliance with state injunctions), these tactics by Amazon are extremely benign.