Talk:Union violence

Deletions

Please do not delete long segments of an article, just because you disagree with it:

Be Bold

But please note: be bold in updating pages does not mean that you should make deletions to long articles on complex, controversial subjects with long histories,

I realize that this article does not have a long history, but still: if you think that one version has a POV, apply reasonable edits to correct that, don't delete wholesale factual information that supports an interpretation you don't agree with.

Loaded Terms

Also, in the guise of "removing POV", you've added a whole lot of POV yourself:

Phrases like

• ... is a pejorative term... (as opposed to "is felt by some to be a pejorative term")
• ... is more of a slogan than a description... (that's an opinion, at best)
• ... used almost exclusively by right-wing (says who?)
• ... Right-wing commentators... (same as above)

are just inflamatory.

Unsubstantiated assertions

I note that the original article had no statements about frequency of union violence, but the ammended version has such assertions...and they are unsupported:

documented examples of actual violent behavior by trades unionists are rare. Most reported examples turn out on examination to involve sabotage or vandalism rather than violence against persons.

If it's true, back it up with a cite, and/or an external link.

(The above comes from Tjic, we can assume - I've formatted his/her headings to make the dialogue easier to follow)

Pax!

OK, I cheerfully agree that I did a hatchet job on this one. It was a piece of blatant anti-union propaganda, riddled with tendentious terminology and inexact use of terms. So I turned it round and made it about a wee bit NPOV from the other side, to get the point across. (I did not, however, delete large sections because I disagreed with them - I deleted them because in my view they were propaganda, i.e. non-encyclopedic, or wrongly characterised, e.g. acts of sabotage listed as acts of violence.)

However, having made my point, I've now set about creating an objective and balanced article about this, and I'm assuming from the way you edited my teases that that's what you want to do too. Getting two people of rather different POVs working on something is quite a good way of arriving at an NPOV result, if it can be done in a constructive spirit. So what I have done is the following:

• Renamed the whole thing "violence in industrial disputes", with redirects from "union violence" and "management violence" (the latter still to do - I'll do it in a minute)
• Put in a bit to explain that descriptions of events are likely to be loaded, and tried to keep the term "violent" to a narrow definition.
• Provided a list of well known cases of violence against union activists, of roughly the same length as the list of examples of violence
• Tried to characterise the circumstances under which industrial disputes turn violent (neither management nor labour is routinely violent, so it's of interest to try to see what triggers each of them into violence).
• Cut out a whole lot of stuff you had formatted as "Pro" and "Con" - much of it the two of us trying to trump each other's perceived POV and not really helpful to the reader.

All that's potentially contentious, but I'm happy to discuss (preferably here rather than by a process of competitive reversion) why I think it is the best way forward.

Some formatting principles I followed, which I don't think are contentious but are just aimed to help readability - I'm listing them here in the hope that we can agree to stick to them:

• I've linked to the names of murder victims, but not to other victims nor to alleged perpetrators. That's just based on a hunch that people are most likely to write pages about murderees, and we don't want every word in the article to be a dead link.
• Linked to the names of all unions and firms - there will almost certainly be articles about them in the future even if not now
• Arranged both lists of examples with the most recent first.

I also tidied up format, expanded abbreviations, etc. Please note that although I've lived in the US I am based in the UK so I may have mistaken names of unions etc - if you can check those from better knowledge please do.

Sorry for twisting your tail! Oh - and please sign your comments (~~~~ does it neatly) - thanks. seglea 00:07, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sources, links, or deletion, please!

I note the rating as high importance, and i do not disagree.

But i also note that this article is riddled with allegations that are backed up by no sources whatsoever. (Links to accused organizations are not sources.)

I think that, considering how badly sourced this article is, and the gravity of some of the accusations, it ought to be pruned of all unsourced material. Richard Myers 19:14, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

About this article

The topic of this article is probably one of the most contentious labor-related issues on Wikipedia.

If it presents a seeming balance between "union violence" and "management violence", why is the article named for just one side of that equation? Why is it not called "Violence during labor-management confrontations" or some-such?

Why is there so little context, explanation, sourcing, nuance?

Why does it consist primarily of two questionable lists?

If someone provided lists of the ten most egregious acts of violence during World War II, someone would declare, but that was during wartime! We tend to compartmentalize, we say those were exceptional times, and the violence can really be understood only within such a context. Well, some industrial disputes are like war, with escalating violence on both sides. Simply presenting two lists of un-sourced "high-lights", without some essential context, doesn't provide understanding. It is like mentioning that someone dropped an atomic weapon and killed a hundred thousand people, without noting that there was a war in which millions died.

As i type this, the article has not one single footnote. Here's an example of the article's tacit acceptance of conjecture as fact:

the word sabotage derives from French workers' practice of hurling their clogs (sabots) into machinery as a form of protest - in the furtherance of industrial disputes.

That isn't accepted as a demonstrated fact. Indeed, the article on sabotage that this links to indicates that it shouldn't be asserted, because the source of the word has not been determined with any certainty. Indeed, some believe the term has nothing to do with wooden shoes worn by people, but is rather derived from a railroad term.

Here's another example of the article's failure to provide context. Grabbing an item at random, "1926 - Striking workers derail The Flying Scotsman train with over 100 passengers on board"

I tried to discover the actual history. I found some who (perhaps apocryphally) claimed this derailment was caused by the government, as a provocation. That may not be persuasive in this case. On the other hand, considerable provocation of violence in labor struggles can be traced to agents of the other side. This is a historical fact, yet the article doesn't even consider that important possibility.

I found an account that claims the target was a coal train, and in any case it was a low speed derailment, and no one was killed. But simply reading the line in the article conjures exceedingly dire imagery that may be unjustified. And we don't even know what the source is for inclusion of the Flying Scotsman derailment.

These lists have real world consequences. On this comment page, someone included the whole list of union violence from this Wikipedia article as an argument against pending legislation:

http://talk.baltimoresun.com/showthread.php?p=4486812

They did not include any items from the list of anti-union violence.

Certainly, we cannot prevent one-sided use of Wikipedia material. But can we at least be certain that the items on the list belong there, and are fully explained? And if this article can have real world implications for the general public, couldn't we please insure that we at least know where the assertions come from?

Doing this topic well is a real challenge. It calls for a significant investment of time, effort, and research. I know there are sources available to do a respectable job. But i am not convinced that the article contributes anything positive to Wikipedia as is.

I think the most basic concern is the total lack of verifiability. Please, anyone who adds to this article, include references! Richard Myers (talk) 17:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Article is much improved. (thanks sincerely) Richard Myers (talk) 15:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Article is now referenced. Remni40 (talk) 16:53, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Merger proposal discussion here. --Goldsztajn (talk) 06:13, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Removing false information

Here's the text that i've removed:

A modern example was the destruction of electrical transformers by members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, depriving 400,000 Alaskans of power in the middle of winter.

Note that in more than two years, it has not been properly sourced. So i went looking.

This apparently comes from David Kendrick, of the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, which may be found on a Cato Institute web page:

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1175

Here is the related content from the document linked from that page:

In all, IBEW militants deprived 400,000 Alaskans of power in March.64

64. "Chugach Says Saboteurs Cut Electricity to 400,000," Alaska News, April 2, 1987.

Note that it is sourced on "Alaska News".

• There is no newspaper in Alaska called "Alaska News".

http://www.usnpl.com/aknews.php

There are sections of newspapers which use the section title "Alaska News" (for example, the Anchorage Daily News), but there appears to be no way to determine the actual source of this specific content based upon the "Alaska News" term. (And if this snippet is actually sourced on the Anchorage Daily News, then the carelessness with which the source info was recorded makes the entire snippet questionable.)

But there's a much more serious problem with this entry.

The content of this snippet is actually false, even if we should discover that an actual "Alaska News" source exists. One need simply compare the snippet and the apparent source, above, to realize that the article DOES NOT SAY what this snippet alleges it says.

The incident that this refers to, occurring near Chugach, appears to include appropriate content for this article. The selected snippet referring to 400,000 Alaskans, even if it is somehow verifiable, needs to be separated from the claim of a direct relationship to transformers, and it needs to be substantiated with a proper source before it can be returned to the article. Richard Myers (talk) 01:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Scope of this article

Is this article entirely about violence used by unions in the context of industrial disputes? Or does it include other instances of union violence? Assuming it's the latter, the Hard Hat Riot should probably be added. Robofish (talk) 15:40, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting question. I think, currently, the scope of this article and two others, Anti-union violence and Industrial violence, are under evaluation because of a suggested merge. I'll definitely keep this link in mind, thanks for offering it. Richard Myers (talk) 21:56, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I just wandered in from somewhere

and was a bit confused right away as to the purpose and/or scope of the article. I read on a bit and got what I think is going on here and would like to propose that something such as, "Union violence is defined as violence committed by unions or union members (during labor disputes?)". As is, the article begins with "When UV occurs" rather than stating what it is. I would just do it, make the change, but will defer to those who have been working here for years. For now. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 15:48, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

excellent suggestion, I encourage your participation here Mr. Carptrash. --Lockley (talk) 18:31, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

You mean, just do it? Start 2013 off with a better beginning to the article? What I don't want to start is more labor violence, here. Carptrash (talk) 19:53, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Do it or me and my pals will break your kneecaps. :P

Nah, I won't do that but your idea is fantastic. In fact, you changing it would be in application of policy - WP:BOLD, which encourages editors to change things when updating the encyclopedia. The flipside of this, however, is that if your bold edit is reverted by another editor, you should discuss it on the talk page. :) Toa Nidhiki05 19:56, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

My knees are already pretty much broken so not much loss there. I DID make the change, what I ask of you, and others, is to please NOT just undo my edit but do something to make it better. Let's keep this moving forward. No movement is a bad negotiating process, if nothing else. Carptrash (talk) 20:01, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I have no intentions of undoing it and the way you made it fits much more with standard lede introductions that the old one. Odds are it will be improved by someone, and that's a good thing. Toa Nidhiki05 20:05, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Incidents in 2011 and 2012

The incidents in the U.S. in 2011 and 2012 did not happen the way this article claims.

When I come to Wikipedia, I expect to see facts, not Fox News propaganda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.233.246.243 (talk) 05:00, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Nearly all content concerns the United States

This article is almost entirely about the United States, with a few entries about events in the UK. To be accurate, the title should be changed to something like Union violence in the United States. The facts concerning UK union violence can be spun off into its own (unfortunately short) article. Plazak (talk) 01:59, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I totally agree. The same thing can be said about the article Anti-union violence, which has a similar US-centric issue.

This idea of splitting off either article raises some questions, though, about "union violence" and "anti-union violence" in countries beyond the US. Judging from the existing content in wikipedia, Australia has a fairly significant history of union conflict with an occasional fatality here and there. South Africa has the Marikana killings of 2012 where about 47 died. Those seem like labor conflicts comparable to those already listed here.

But then I see incidents that are harder to characterize. For example the Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo supplied troops to the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War in 1936; that's a labor union, and that's violence, but that's not a labor-management conflict. Same with the Polish labor uprisings of the 20s and 30s. In Soviet Union there was trade unionist opposition to Lenin and Stalin in the 1920s and 1930s. Many of those, Mikhail Tomsky for one example, were executed or exiled. Would that count as "anti-union violence"? Just looking for a sensible definition of what should appear, if we do split these pages off. Lockley (talk) 04:46, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Per discussion above, splitting off most of this article into Union violence in the United States.

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