Union Members Charged With Theater Fires

CHICAGO (AP)--Seven members of a movie projectionists union were charged along with two associates Friday with trying to settle labor disputes by setting fires and carrying out beatings at theaters in 10 states.

Federal prosecutors said the crimes were intended to scare officials of three major theater chains into giving in. In two cases, theater managers were beaten--with a pipe in one case, with a bat in another.

The 15 fires and other crimes took place from New York to Texas, and blazes were started with moviegoers in the theaters, forcing mass evacuations, according to the indictment.


http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/ap/ap_story.html/National/AP.V3184.AP-Movie-Theater-A.html

This means all unions are bad! All union members are arsonists! All unions should be abolished as a result of this, and all union members put in jail.

This is a very important lesson.

It is about time that we all learned the truth about union thugs. There is no point in working to insure an affluent middle class any more. Who needs health care, a minimum wage, paid overtime, collective bargaining when there are a few in union members who commit crimes? It is way better that we end all unions so that no crime like this can ever be committed by unions again. In fact we don't even have to find out if it really was union members, the fact that it was a union shop is all we need to know.

Corporate criminals who rob millions of victims and collapse pensions are far less dangerous, so lets go after the unions and let them go. That must be the only choice since that’s what’s happening

Unions do not use tactics like this to push their membership or politics. Unions are designed for the people and by the people to protect the people. No way a union would do this. It must be a bush or rove scab outfit designed to make unions look bad.

I've been in unions for twenty-seven years, my family for a hundred
years. We helped start a railroad union and we've been teamsters,
IBEW and AFT.

I don't believe this. Nice propaganda for the machine. Without unions,
workers would still be making fifty cents an hour.

RV, who remembers working at hard labor jobs for .93 cents an hour,
no bennies, no breaks.

...and some of these "consultants" aren't exactly what you want for neighbors.

In the Detroit newspaper strike a few years ago, a delivery truck was set afire. Lotsa local TV news coverage. After some investigation, fingers pointed toward toward management and its "special strike employees."

End of investigation.

Keep moving, folks. Nothing to see here. Keep moving.

in OKC when they try to lump all union members in with these guys.

What was the Unabomber's politics?

I think the point is that it is absurd to say that what the extreme fringe of a moderate movement does is indicative of the behavior of the whole movement. That said, Ted wasn’t a member of a political party but since he was schizophrenic and delusional it is likely that the party where he would find more of his own kind is with the Republicans.

just up the road from me. Not trying to be a smartass, hope you don't think that...
;-)

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But that staement was insightful into their heart and mind. Ship them another one???? WOW!!

I've heard a rumor.

on edit: Please PM me if I'm right.

I guess we'll have to see how much of a splash this makes in the TV news to know whether the administration is now preparing to declare war on the unions.

One of the fundamental problems with too many American citizens -- and one of the reasons Republicans keep getting elected -- is that so many of us go nutso and forget our own self interest when we see someone else getting a better deal than we have. I hear it all the time from people who see the benefits union workers get and instead of demanding "why don't I have those benefits too? Why can't my kids have health care? Why can't I be paid a decent wage?" they demand that the union workers be stripped of what they've won. Yet strangely these same people frequently refuse to extend the same vindictiveness toward billionaires. I guess it's only folks like us that aren't allowed to have nice things.

Françoise