outdoor338 wrote: If you owned a business and someone told you that they were going to prevent your business from operating unless you met their demands, wouldn’t that be a form of extortion?
According to one dictionary, extortion is defined as:
“The obtaining of property from another induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.
Under the Common Law, extortion is a misdemeanor consisting of an unlawful taking of money by a government officer. It is an oppressive misuse of the power with which the law clothes a public officer.
Most jurisdictions have statutes governing extortion that broaden the common-law definition. Under such statutes, any person who takes money or property from another by means of illegal compulsion may be guilty of the offense. When used in this sense, extortion is synonymous with blackmail, which is extortion by a private person. In addition, under some statutes a corporation may be liable for extortion.”
Under the legal definition, when a union demands certain conditions for its members and if those demands are not met they will go on strike, shutting a business down, that amounts to extortion. Add to that mix, states that are not right-to-work states, and you have government endorsed extortion.
What is the difference between a union making demands on a business using the threat of a strike and the protection practices used by organized crime? The mob representatives tell business owners if they don’t pay a regular protection fee that something will happen to them or their business. Aren’t unions basically doing the same thing?
Here's the difference..Back at the turn of the century a dozen men had all the money and the masses had none..After a few generations of american slavery we the peoople decided to level the playing feild against the Robber Barons and empowered the people with laws that support unions.....And the middle class was born..
