Given the propensity of unions to take their organizing campaigns into the violent range, this is a total outrage and those not wanting a union or  bystanders or relatives of the families should certainly not have to put up with union harassment. Personally, after some of the ruling and finding of the NLRB
of late, I feel they should be disbanded anyway as they no longer serve the purpose they were initially formed for (and they are just more government involvement in the free market now). Union no longer really have much of a standing in our country and although this president has given them the moon and tons of tax money, if anything, they are thought of less favorably because of the violence and hard arm tactics. One should have the freedom to  choose to either belong or not belong to a union without having life and limb threatened.  Your thoughts?

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Lachlan Markay

August 10, 2012

At least four states provide exemptions to anti-staljking laws for labor union officials conducting organizing activities, according to a new report from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Every state in America criminalizes stalking, generally defined as repeated unwanted contact with another individual designed to cause some sort of mental or emotional distress. But Illinois, California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania offer broad exemptions for union officials.

A law in Illinois, for instance, exempts from stalking prohibitions individuals who are engaging in “any controversy concerning wages, salaries, hours, working conditions or benefits . . . the making or maintaining of collective bargaining agreements, and the terms to be included in those agreements.”

Pennsylvania law says that laws against stalking “shall not apply to conduct by a party to a labor dispute.” That could prove troubling for the owners of Philadelphia-based Post Brothers Apartments, who allege that the wife of one of the company’s owners “is routinely followed taking their toddler to pre-school by picketers” involved in a labor dispute.

The Chamber explains more generally why these exemptions are concerning:

Harassment of opponents is often part of a union’s effort to confront adversaries and pressure them to give in to its demands, and stalking is one aspect of this behavior. Unions have been known to employ this tactic even against other unions. For example, in 2008, the California Nurses’ Association (CNA) obtained a temporary restraining order against the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) because the SEIU repeatedly sent activists to the homes of CNA board members during a long, acrimonious dispute between the two rival unions.

Sometimes, though, the harassment goes even further and crosses into the truly scary. The owner of a non-union electrical services business in Ohio, for example, was the repeated victim of stalking and other acts of violence against him during a bitter union organizing effort. In addition to having rocks thrown through the windows at his place of business, his car’s tires punctured multiple times, and an assault on one of his employees, this business owner was actually shot in the arm by an intruder he confronted in his front yard after he discovered the person vandalizing his car.

Some state laws exempt union activities from other criminal prohibitions, such as trespassing. As the Chamber explains, California “explicitly excludes persons engaged in labor union activities” from its strict laws against trespassing, which specify that individuals must leave another’s property when asked.

Read more here:  http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/10/states-exempt-labor-unions-from...