My first encounter with unionist thugs occurred shortly after getting out of the Army in the late 80’s. Until then, I had never thought much about unions one way or the other. That all changed when I started my first job after getting out of the Army.
I was hired onto a private security company. One of the places I provided security for was USS Posco in Pittsburg California. USS Posco was a Korean/US steel production company. In 1987 they were being picketed by some union. I don’t remember the name of the union.
I at first thought the picketers had worked there and had been fired, but no. The union clowns were upset because the company, a PRIVATE company had the nerve to hire non-union workers.
My company had me stationed in sort of a demilitarized zone, a vacant lot, just outside the plant’s fence line. The picketers, usually about a dozen or so positioned themselves along the roadway leading up to the entrance of the plant. For the first few weeks I was there, they just held signs along the roadway, calling on people to oppose the company. One old geezer, “Cowboy” would sometimes say he fought “those people” during the Korean War and now they’re over here “taking our jobs”.
Of course, most of the people working at USS Posco were Americans and if “Cowboy” was fighting the Koreans at Posco, that would have meant he was fighting for Communist North Korea, which given the political bent of most unions could have been a possibility.
By the way, did I mention I was working as unarmed security and was using my personal vehicle as my guard shack? I would alternate between sitting in my car or standing near the fence line or sitting in the chair that had been set out for me. My job was to “observe and report” any actions of the picketers that threatened the property of the company or its workers.
After a week or so, after Posco continued to defy the union, the union began to get more belligerent and would shout and scream at the workers as they came and left work. At about that time, I had an epiphany. Being unarmed among these people probably wasn’t the wisest thing to do, so I started bringing my 9MM Sig-Sauer 226. It held 15 rounds in the magazine and I kept an extra two magazines in the case with the gun. The gun stayed in my vehicle as it would have been difficult to conceal in my uniform. Had the situation warranted, I would have found a way to conceal it.
Generally, they left me alone and occasionally some of them would engage in small talk. There were two colored men among the group. I remember noticing they seemed to stay more with themselves, rather than mingling with the other group. I think I remember sometimes engaging me in conversations on the evils of the White Man.
On one occasion, I observed several members of the group walk to the trunks of their cars and retrieve baseball bats, which I reported to my supervisor. Police were called but before they arrived, the unionists began “playing baseball”. The fuzz told them to put the bats away and they complied. The bats were an obvious attempt to intimidate the plant workers.
Several times there were larger groups of picketers on days when they wanted to put on a show. During one of these large demonstrations, a lawyer for Posco was there and took photographs of the picketers. At one point, he ventured into their group and they roughed him up and stole his camera. I believe he eventually did get it back… with the film removed.
Even then, I wasn’t too concerned for my safety. Remember the Sig-Sauer 226? While I only had 45 rounds, that would still be about one round per 2-3 unionist extremists. If they had chosen to assault me, I’m sure less than half a magazine would have discouraged them.
One day, I was standing near the fence line of the plant and I heard a tinkling sound coming from the direction of the unionists. I looked down the street and saw the older of the two colored guys kicking something in the roadway. I walked down the road and observed he had put several nails in the road. The nails were bent and formed so that they would puncture tires of plant workers arriving to work.
I stopped one vehicle that was approaching them and took the nails from the road. As I was retrieving the nails “Cowboy” shouted to me that I couldn’t leave the plant property. (Which of course, was b.s.) I reported the incident. After that, both of the colored guys started haranguing me about working for the White Man and accused me of being a White Man in a Black Man’s body. It was like listening to Calypso Louie Farrakhan or Malik Shabazz. They went on about how the security company wouldn’t protect me when there were “hundreds” of picketers and the unionists would be like the Molly McGuire’s. (?)
Point of fact, during the time I worked there I never saw much more than a hundred unionists. After that day, I never saw the older Colored guy again.
I believe that whole incident was a test to see what I would do. The old, colored fool could have easily placed the nails in the road quietly and I never would have noticed it.
Some time later, I was sitting in a chair near the fence line and probably had dozed off. (Pittsburg in the summer was about 80-100 degrees and there was no shade where I was) As a truck was leaving the plant, one of the picketers tossed a paper bag with some type of sharp object under the tires and it blew out one of them.
The driver described one of the old geezers who was a regular picketer. After his act of vandalism, the geezer was never there again.
On several occasion, the unionists tried to get sympathy for their cause by attempting to portray themselves as victims.
One day, as I was pacing along the fence line, when my back was turned I heard a thump behind me near the unionist’s vehicles. “Cowboy” came over to me and pointed out that one of the unionists’ vehicles was struck by a ball bearing, which shattered a window. Cowboy said the ball bearing came “right past my head”, barely missing me before hitting the car.
I call “B.S.!” on that one.
Two things:
One: I was standing near a chain link fence which was about 2-3 feet taller than me.
Two: the nearest plant worker was probably about 100+ yards away. In other words, a worker, presumably using a slingshot would have had to have been accurate enough to hit a vehicle window at a hundred yards and lucky enough to miss the links in the fence.
On another day, a truck driver was approaching the plant and a unionist thug (who I’ll call Alan Henderson, A.H. for short) stood by the side of the road shouting “SCAB, SCAB, SCAB!” at him. The driver jerked the truck toward the A.H. and then back toward the road. The A.H. ran over to me and asked if I saw what just happened. I told him I did and he went back to the other unionists.
Several minutes later, an ambulance can screaming up to the unionists and A.H., who had just several minutes earlier ran up to me, was now lying on his back and claiming the truck had hit him. When the police arrived, he told them I could tell them what happened, if “I” would tell the truth. Ironic.
Obviously I couldn’t actually see if the truck hit him or not from where I was standing, but usually when a Mack truck hits someone, they aren’t able to walk all that well.
I did get a laugh one day when “Cowboy” was telling a CHP officer how some talk show host was going to give the CHP what for, for how they were treating the unionists (i.e., preventing them from damaging property, harassing plant workers).
Cowboy told the officer, He (I don’t recall the host’s name) took on Governor Deukmejian, now he was going to take on the CHP. The officer asked him, “Is Deukmejian still Governor?” Cowboy: “Yeah”. CHP Officer, “and we’ll still be the CHP”. That shut up Cowboy for a while.
I never did find out the final outcome of the USS Posco-Unionist Thug dispute. I ended up getting a better job.
That incident turned me against unions and I now only see them as a sometimes necessary evil, and that their power needs to be diminished.
The recent antics of the unionist thugs in Wisconsin and the antics of SEIU only confirm my opinion.
Robot
831-241-4767
