Via Twitchy, read about Alabama TV station WAFF’s report on non-union utility crews who traveled from the South to help restore power to Hurricane Sandy victims — only to be turned away because they were non-union.
Don’t believe it could happen? Think again.
First, a comment from a Twitchy reader: “I’m from Jersey. I had to work with an IBEW crew for years in Hackensack. (Sopranos Country). Trust me, these guys can be filth. Not all of them, but many of them don’t give a *blank* about anything but themselves and the union. Violence is always an option. In Jersey its just a way of life. Sorry to the good people who wasted their time driving north expecting union scum to appreciate the help.”
Second, some useful background about the IBEW’s legacy of intimidation and violence against non-union competitors:
1986 – IBEW UNION INTIMIDATION AND VIOLENCE AGAINST ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR – A long awaited damage suit against the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union was tried in Anchorage Superior Court in August 1996. Alaska Utility Construction, Inc. sued the IBEW Union for harassment, abuse, and illegal attempts to force them to sign an agreement with IBEW during the 1986 construction of a power line extension for Matanuska Electric Association to the Eklutna water plant.
During the controversy, the Anchorage Police Department and the State Troopers were forced to deploy as many as 30 uniformed officers to protect employees and property and to separate IBEW pickets from the open shop contractor’s job site. The IBEW and its sympathizers were responsible for numerous acts of intimidation during the conflict including snipers firing on the jobsite, deployment of a Molotov cocktail, threats against the contractor, Aaron Downing’s wife and children and against employees. These actions were preludes to the disruption and violence that occurred during the 1987 IBEW strike against Chugach Electric Association.
Chugach Electric board president Ray Kreig attended the first day of the trial and was alarmed that no public observers, press or even electric utility management was present in the courtroom. He telephoned the newspaper and TV stations but they declined to cover the trial, saying it was unimportant.
Kreig believed the trial was crucial because if the public is ever to realize the benefits of lower cost utility construction and maintenance, ALL contractors must obviously be protected from this kind of terrorism and harassment. With the phasing-in of new open bidding bylaws at Chugach and Matanuska Electric Associations, no non-IBEW companies would bid if this kind of activity is condoned in Alaska by the community or the utilities.
Kreig and other volunteers for the ratepayer group acted as unbiased reporters and wrote seven CICE FAX UPDATES (totaling 23 pages) that were distributed to all news media in Anchorage until the media was shamed into starting to do its job and cover the trial. Six newspaper articles ultimately were written and the Channel 2 TV News crew showed up and did a good story, to the shock of the IBEW that thought accountability for its evil deeds could be evaded.
September 11, 1996 – ANCHORAGE – The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union must pay a local non-union company $425,000 in punitive damages for allowing its members to wage a violent picket in 1986. An Anchorage Superior Court jury ruled in favor of Alaska Utility Construction and its owner, Palmer resident Aaron Downing. (from: The Frontiersman)
Having grown over the course of several decades into one of the largest union-free electrical contracting businesses in the Toledo, Ohio, area, King Electrical Services and its employees are seasoned in dealing with Big Labor harassment, threats and violence.
John King started the firm during the 1970′s, after first working for a unionized electrical contractor and serving a stint in the military. In his business’s early days, Mr. King recalls, “it was nothing to have to regularly buy a new set of tires. The ice pick was the weapon of choice.”
During a mid-eighties strike, King Electrical, which then had just eight or nine employees, was picketed by more than 50 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW/AFL-CIO) union militants. One employee had his car trashed and was also beaten up by IBEW thugs.
The harassment and violence have never stopped. Just during the first half of this year, goons hurled rocks through King Electrical’s shop-front windows, and smashed the windows and slashed the tires of the company’s trucks in separate incidents.
But somehow none of this prepared Mr. King for what happened to him on the night of August 10, while his wife was away with their grandchildren.
After waking up at his home in Monroe County, Mich., 2.5 miles from Toledo, Mr. King noticed that the motion lights in his driveway had come on. He then looked out his front window and saw a man who appeared to be breaking into his SUV.
‘It’s Not So Surprising That Union Militants Think They’re Above the Law’
As a resident of a neighborhood where violent crime is practically unheard of, Mr. King unhesitatingly walked out his front door to yell at the apparent thief.
So confident was Mr. King that his home was his “safe haven” from the Big Labor thuggery he and his employees have often faced on the job, in fact, that, prone and bloodied in front of his house a few seconds later, he didn’t realize he’d been shot.
t’s only been a few days since 45,000 CWA and IBEW members walked off their jobs at Verizon, however, incidents of harassment, sabotage, and illegal picketing have already begun to pile up.
On Tuesday, Verizon obtained an injunction in Pennsylvania and filed for one in Delaware “to prevent ‘illegal’ and ‘reprehensible’ strike activities such as keeping managers out of buildings.”
In one deplorable incident, a foul-mouthed IBEW member in New Jersey put his young daughter in front of a Verizon truck turning into a driveway as he berated the driver using expletives.
Watch:
Boston IBEW: Local IBEW 827 storms Verizon VP Bill Foshay’s neighborhood and union members scream “We’re here to fight” in front of his private residence on a weekend afternoon.
If you pay attention, you already know there’s a long history of Big Labor thuggery against volunteers who threaten the union racket. It’s no different during national emergencies. As I’ve noted before:
No good deed goes unpunished by union bosses—unless it benefits their political empire.
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