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Union busting

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because…The article is generally very uneven. There have been persistent complaints about POV, though there has been strong disagreement on whether or not the language is POV or not. There have been many changes recently to attempt to make the article more NPOV, but these have seemed to make the article more scattered. There are only a few editors contributing, so disagreements can be intractable. Any views as to general quality and NPOV are welcome.

Thanks, LedRush (talk) 01:30, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To quantify, some of those complaints concerning NPOV have included suspected cases of sock puppetry.--Goldsztajn (talk) 04:48, 23 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Review by Eubulides

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  • Obviously, with all the tags, there is a lot of controversy about this article. If this continues to be a problem, I suggest mediation; see Wikipedia:Mediation.
  • The article is poorly organized. I don't see a pattern to the table of contents. See Bank run for a better organization.
  • The lead assumes that the reader knows about things like the NLRA, card check, salting, RC and RD petitions, NLRB election procedures, etc., etc. The vast majority of readers won't have a clue as to what any of that is. If these are worth mentioning in the lead, they must also be be explained in the lead.
Fixed.--Goldsztajn (talk) 22:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead starts off wrong. It uses the phraseology "Union busting is a term used by labor organizations and trade unions to describe activities..." There is no need to put the phrase "used by labor organizations and trade unions" here. Simply describe the activity.
Fixed.--Goldsztajn (talk) 22:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed.--Goldsztajn (talk) 22:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The claim in the lead that workers bust unions is very strange, as is the section Workers as union busters. No reliable sources are cited, and the idea that workers are union busters is not supported by any reliable sources that I could find. The section in question should be removed, along with the corresponding claim in the lead.
Done.--Goldsztajn (talk) 15:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Updated and revised as "Workers assisting in union busting".--Goldsztajn (talk) 22:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • History talks only about the United States; it should do an international outlook. It spends way too much time on why unions exist, and too little time on union busting. Also, I suggest moving this section to the end; most people want to know current events more than they want to know history.
  • Standardize on the spelling "strikebreaker".
I've changed to "strikebreaker" as it got many more google hits than "strike breaker"LedRush (talk) 16:33, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't use boldface in the body to highlight terms, as per the manual of style.
I've been in the process of doing this for a while...though currently derailed by petty pickering. I will continue.LedRush (talk) 16:33, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't use CAPS either (e.g., "BEFORE").
I've been in the process of doing this for a while...though currently derailed by petty pickering. I will continue.LedRush (talk) 16:33, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Section headers should not contain the phrases "union busting" or "union busters", as per the Manual of Style.
  • The article is indeed too long.
  • There are way too many sections and subsections. The table of contents shouldn't be more than 20 lines long. Preferably no more than 10 lines long. This includes subsections.
  • Several sections on who does the busting should be combined into a single section on roles. These include Union busters, Law firms as union busters, Industrial psychologists as union busters..
  • Private stands out as a poorly-written section: it's too long, the title makes no sense, and the paragraphs look like they were written by alternating sides of a debate team, which is a terrible way to write an encyclopedia. If I see another "Conversely," I'll scream.
  • Topics that don't seem to be covered well (not that I had the stomach to wade through reading every single line of this article):
  • Discrimination against union organizers
  • Denial of access to employees
  • Interference with certification
  • Labor law violations
  • Weakness of NLRB protections and penalties (e.g., lack of penalties on consultants)
  • First-contract tactics (e.g., no binding arbitration is available)
  • There are way too few images. Here are some more free images that you can use:
  • All full book citations should have ISBN numbers, or, if those are not available, OCLC numbers. For example, Levitt 1993 should use ISBN 0-517-58330-5.
  • Sources that look quite useful but are not cited in the article:
  • Michelle O'Sullivan; Patrick Gunnigle (2008). "'Bearing all the hallmarks of oppression': union avoidance in Europe's largest low-cost airline". Labor Studies Journal. doi:10.1177/0160449X08319661.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • John Logan (2004). "The fine art of union busting". New Labor Forum. 13 (2): 76–91. doi:10.1080/10957960490434333.
  • Tony Dundon (2002). "Employer opposition and union avoidance in the UK". Industrial Relations Journal. 33 (3): 234–45. doi:10.1111/1468-2338.00232.
  • William N. Cooke (2001). "Union avoidance and foreign direct investment in the USA". Employee Relations. 23 (6): 558–80. doi:10.1108/EUM0000000006268.
  • Richard W. Hurd; Joseph B. Uehlein (1994). "Patterned responses to organizing: case studies of the union-busting convention". In Sheldon Friedman (ed.). Restoring the Promise of American Labor Law. Cornell University Press. pp. 61–75. ISBN 0875463266.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • This is not a complete review. I didn't have time to read the entire article carefully. In particular, I didn't have time to investigate for WP:NPOV problems. Sorry, but it's quite a slog.

Eubulides (talk) 08:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by llywrch

Just some general comments:

  • One item that is missing from this article is the use of violence to break unions -- & not just strikes. While many readers will think of such events like the Mine Workers battles of Appalachia (where both sides fought pitched battles), or the American West Coast Longshoremen strike (where the company cops were opposed by flying columns of strikers), it is a well-known fact that union activists in many non-Western countries face the risk of assassination or legal murder. I don't have any examples at hand, but I could track some down if you need the help.
  • One non-Western example of strikebreaking was how the Japan Railways Group put Japanese railroad union out of business -- although that union admittedly had a bad reputation & few friends. (I'm amazed that Wikipedia has only a passing reference to the matter; sufficient material exists for a detailed article without risk of original research).
  • Another non-Western example is the Ethiopian government's deft legal maneuver to take control of the Ethiopian Teachers' Association. This would be an example of another tactic not mentioned in the article: create a tame, company-run union to compete -- & put out of business -- a targeted union.
  • A last word of advice: be very careful to check & recheck every one of the sources you use in this article. (And when in doubt, be as literal in your summaries as possible.) As you know, this is a very contentious subject, & some individuals are not above outright lying to make their POV the prevailing message here. (An example would be those bizarre television ads that the Center for Union Facts ran last year.) If you are certain of your facts, it will be all the easier to deal with these types, & make your case to objective Admins when these folks get out of hand. -- llywrch (talk) 00:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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