HYPOCRISY

When the industrial age began,, there is no doubt that early capitalists were brutal toward their workers.  They had all the power. They provided work and a paycheck and there were more people who needed jobs than there were jobs  Unions provided a "vigorous" response and called it "negotiating". It served the purpose at the time.

The roles were reversed when unions finally turned to "strikes" as their main "negotiating" tactic.  Strikes were very effective because it cost the employer a loss of income for as long a strike might last.  It sounds similar to extortion but it all depends on who's doing the defining.

My mother was an immigrant and a seamstress.  The dressmakers were part of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU} which was run by a bunch of thugs.  The union "representative" for the women was "elected" by the women and was called the "floor lady". In fact, she was elected fraudulently and represented the union not the ladies.  The women finally got fed up with the situation and decided to really elect someone they wanted as their representative.  At the meeting the ladies nominated their choice but the union thug objected.  My mother. not very fluent in English, jumped up and exclaimed, "Whatsa matta, elect a new president every four years, no can changa floor lady?" She brought down the house and a new floor lady was elected.

Not too long after this incident I saw a report in a New York  newspaper that caught my eye because the headline included " ILGWU".  The story was relatively short but it reported that the ILGWU refused to allow it's office workers to unionize! It's another too common case of "Do as I say not as I do".