Read A History of Unionbusting!
Robert Michael Smith wrote From Blackjacks to Briefcases. A
history of commercialized strikebreaking and unionbusting in the United States.
2003, Ohio University Press, Athens. He
is a history professor in Ohio. He was interviewed on the “Workers Beat”
program on KNON radio, 89.3 FM, at 8 AM on Wednesday, January 28.
Smith’s book takes up the entire history of the union busting industry from the
first times that Pinkerton agents spied on, beat up, killed, framed, and
testified against American working people. Other “detective” agencies soon
joined the growing industry and raked in millions of dollars from big
corporations such as Ford and General Motors. Their low-life tactics, when
revealed, disgusted normal Americans. Union leader “Big Bill” Haywood had this put
on postcards: “That you may know how small a detective is, you can take a hair
and punch the pith out of it and in the hollow hair you can put the hearts and
souls of 40,000 detectives and they will still rattle.”
The LaFollette Committee of congress revealed many
“legal” and illegal unionbusting tactics. Pinkerton and other agencies then
changed their tactics to those less likely to draw public attention.
Investigations that led to the Landrum Griffin Act of 1959 also revealed nasty
practices. The new act required that the unionbusters report on any direct
contact that they have with the union members they are trying to mislead and
cheat. Afterward, union busters avoided the law by avoiding direct contact and
working through lower-level foremen and whatever company stooges from the shop
floor that they could entrap. After Reagan was elected, even the meager
protections of the Landrum Griffin act were seldom enforced. Today, union
busters are regularly hired to provide scabs, spy on unions, propagandize
against organizing, and whatever else they can get away with. For a look at shameful modern practices, check out
Confessions of a Union Buster by
Martin Levitt.