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"the conduct was so violent . . . as to render an employee

unfit for future service."61   In other words, short of

killing or crippling a nonstriking worker, the NLRB's

position is "hands-off."

In the Greyhound case, the NLRB held that "although

the Union's conduct . . . was substantial and widespread,"

the violence was not "aimed directly at employer bargain-

ing representatives."  Since the snipers had shot only at

replacement workers, and not at Greyhound management, the

strikers' violence was not covered by federal labor law,

according to the NLRB.62

Chugach Electric Association

Near Anchorage, Alaska, in 1987, a consumer-owned

utility was violently struck by members of the Inter-

national Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW).  The

strike involved fewer than 200 workers employed by the

Chugach Electric Association.  The union sought to close

the shop to nonunion workers.

The union established roving picket lines wherever

repair crews went.  The local president admitted that the

union monitored radio repair calls in order to head off

the trucks.  When the repair crews arrived, they were pre-

vented from leaving their trucks by the pickets who

arrived first.  The utility's general manager was rammed

twice in his car.  Additional company vehicles were rammed

on subsequent days.  Ultimately, the pickets caused the

outages that struck four entire communities serviced by

the utility.  One nonstriking employee was forced to relo-

cate his family after pickets threatened to rape and mur-

der his wife.

On the second day of the strike, a rifle bullet fired

into a transformer left homes without electricity during a

cold Alaskan March.  When replacement workers attempted to

restore power, they were blocked by strikers who slashed

the tires of the repair vehicles.  On the following day,

strikers again threatened a repair crew attempting to

restore power to 1,000 homes.  The utility suffered four

suspicious power outages during the first four days of the

strike.

Despite assertions of peaceful intentions by the union

president, another union militant threatened the utility's

Board of Directors: "You settle it [the strike] or we'll

bring this town down."63   In all, IBEW militants deprived

400,000 Alaskans of power in March.64