I had a job once where I was forced to join the union or not work there. I liked the job, but could not take the union. One evening I missed a union meeting, I came in at the tail end of the meeting. The union man told me if I missed another meeting I would be fired, I told him where to put his union in front of the entire group of drivers, and quite on the spot.
My Dad worked for a plant that made office furniture. My Mom's cousin Henry had worked there for years, since high school. The owner also owned plants in several other states and Argentina. There had been a turn over in personnel, older workers retiring and new younger workers coming in. The younger ones decided to unionize, the older men did not want to. The union came in. Suddenly my Dad was forced to go sign up on the union board for work, and an older union man was given Dad's job driving truck to deliver the products.
The owner came back from Argentina and found out what had happened during his absence. He shut down the plant. He called in his old employees including Henry, the ones that had not voted for the union, and put them to work modernizing the plant, and security. After a year of being shut down, and the maintenance and modernization had been completed, he decided to reopen. He quietly hired new employees, none of the employees that had voted for the union were rehired. During the year of closure the owner had gotten permission from the city to move his fence out to the edge of the street pavement. There was no sidewalks in the area. When the union found out he was reopening the plant they came out to form picket lines, but there was no place for them to picket except on the street. The Nashville Police had something to say about that, and carted a few off to jail. The picket line formed across the street in an open lot, but soon fizzled. Two union members got shot when they climbed over the fence at night to try damaging trucks.
Union thugs made threats against Henry and his family. One night they drove up into Henry's driveway. There sat Henry on the porch with a shotgun. Henry blasted the radiator on the truck they were driving, and said the first person out of the truck would get the same, the union thugs left and never came back. The plant is still running strong and still non-union. All new employees are told what to expect if they ever mention bringing in the union.
