Union Army Attacks Security Guards, Takes Hostages

When I wrote about Hoffa’s uncivil remarks earlier this week, my friend Professor Tevyeh reminded us that some of unions’ history “suggests that violent ‘rhetoric’ isn’t just rhetoric.”

He’s not kidding.  Hoffa said, “this is your army,” and as if on cue—in case any of us thought unions only meant it as a metaphor for bloc voting—an army of five hundred union workers invaded and forcibly took over a port facility, taking hostages and destroying property, to protest the company’s using not even non-union workers, but workers belonging to another union.  Via the Foxhole and Big Journalism, here’s the story from the Associated Press: 

LONGVIEW, Wash. (AP) — Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.

Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.

The AP assures us, “No one was hurt”—oh, well, it’s all OK, then—“and nobody has been arrested.”  What?

Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.

The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that’s staffing a workforce of other union laborers.

This wasn’t the first violence from this union this week, either:

Police from several agencies in southwest Washington, the Washington State Patrol and Burlington Northern Santa Fe responded to the violence to secure the scene that followed a demonstration Wednesday.

“We’re not surprised,” Duscha said. “A lot of the protesters were telling us this [is] only the start.”

One sergeant was threatened with baseball bats and retreated, Duscha said. . . .

The train was the first grain shipment to arrive at Longview. It arrived Wednesday night after police arrested 19 demonstrators who tried to block the tracks. They were led by ILWU International President Robert McEllrath, who said they would return.

The blockade appeared to defy a federal restraining order issued last week against the union after it was accused of assaults and death threats.

As Dana Loesch at Big Journalism put it yesterday,

While all of this was going on, the group’s head, Richard Trumka, was invited as a guest of the President to tonight’s jobs address.

Rebel Pundit reminds us of when Illinois’ Jan Schakowsky called tea party-supporting congressmen “radical hostage takers.” I wonder if the congresswoman would like to amend her statement now?

If you thought that all of this would score major news coverage, you’d be wrong. Only a handful of outlets have written about it. As of this writing, I’ve not seen any television coverage . . . .

Trumka sat with the First Lady — along with GE President Jeff Immelt (while the President gave an address that ironically touched on crony capitalism and big business) as though nothing had happened.

(links in original)

Unbelievable.