The recent conflict on Melbourne's wharves between the Martime Union of Australia and Patrick's Stevedores at least had the salutary effect of once and for all demonstrating the political bigotry, hypocrisy and ignorance of the mass of 'journalists' who reported the event. Journalists on The Australian, Rupert Murdoch's Australian flagship and our only national paper, made no genuine attempt at objective reporting, not hesitating to support and justify union thuggery, with Mike Steketee, the paper's national affairs editor, leading the pack. So committed are Murdoch's 'journalists' to the unions, no matter how brutal or corrupt, that Cameron Stewart, the paper's New York correspondent, joined in the the pro-MUA propaganda campaign with a thoroughly misleading article on American unionism. Quoting generously from Levitt, Stewart conveyed the impression that American unions were peaceable organisations under constant threat from mainly unscrupulous anti-union companies. History, however, reveals just how appallingly dishonest Stewart's report really is.
American unions have a terrible history of violence.
Despite what Stewart claims, Americans have always had the right to form unions and have them negotiate on their behalf. In fact, several national unions were formed after the Civil War. So much for Roosevelt's New Deal and unions. Violence broke out in Pittsburgh during the Railway strike of 1877 with strikers using pistols and rifles. The violence spread, involving beatings, several deaths, assaults on property.