Shopping online is becoming the de facto route of choice for many during the festive season – comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, earlier reported that holiday season spending thus far had topped $15 billion in the US alone, marking a 15% increase over last year. How much of that did you spend? And how much time did your employees spend shopping online (and on the clock) during this holiday season? Apparently, for many, enough to get on the naughty list.

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America has come a long way since the days when rampant sexual misconduct was commonplace in many work environments.  Over the past three decades a standard has been set for workplace behavior, and if you step outside of it, sometimes even just a little bit or accidentally, you will pay.  If you’re wealthy, you will pay a lot.  We don’t get many things just right, and there’s definitely still women enduring the pain of sexual harassment, but prosecuting those who propagate it has become part of the culture.  That being said, here are five of the biggest sexual harassment cases and settlements: 
 

ABM

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ABM is a large building maintenance company employing some 91,000 in the U.S. and Canada.  On behalf of 21 Hispanic Workers, the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) filed suit against the company after discovering gross sexual harassment and abuse.  The victims were forced to deal with “varying degrees of unwelcome touching, explicit sexual comments and requests for sex by 14 male co-workers.”  One woman alleged she had been raped, and the accused just happened to already be a registered sex offender.

Another woman claims that she was fired after reporting being touched by the janitor. “My supervisor would laugh at me,” she says. The company, which takes in more than $3.5 billion annually, was able to weasel its way out of the charges, settling for $5.8 million without admitting any wrongdoing.  The money was a pittance to the company, who had this to say: “We constantly strive to provide all of our employees a professional and safe work environment free from harassment of any kind.”  And when they fail, they provide their employees with some money.

Mitsubishi Motors

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Working for Mitsubishi in the 90′s was a dream for many — but not for the female workers at the Normal, Illinois plant.  In 1998 the company was charged with allowing a hostile setting for women to work in since at least 1990; not so normal after all.  In the plant, women were habitually fondled, verbally abused and subjected to inappropriate jokes, behavior and graffiti. Women were denied promotions unless they performed sexual favors.  In one outrageous case, an air rifle was fired between a female worker’s legs ‘as a joke’.  In 1998, Mitsubishi agreed to pay $34 million to the female workers after these conditions were brought to light in a collective lawsuit — but only after discrediting their workers by claiming that a ‘public spectacle’ was made of the issue, which they thought was mishandled.  Millions more were paid in individual suits.  Mitsubishi claims to now have a zero tolerance policy in place for sexual harassment and seems to have really stuck to it.
 
 

Lois Jenson

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This was such an infamous case, it was depicted by Charlize Theron in the 2005 film “North Country.”  Lois Jenson was an employee at the Eveleth Taconite Co. mine in Minnesota during the 70′s and 80′s.  Sexual harassment is still rampant now, but at the time it was often an accepted and assumed part of many work environments.  At Jenson’s job, women were regularly harassed sexually and in a way that was threatening to their safety.  When Jenson first complained about her treatment, her car tires were slashed, and the company refused to do help or reimburse her.  Jenson took the matter to court, engaging in what would become a decades-long fight which lasted into the 1990′s.  She was joined by other plaintiffs from within the mine, and eventually won a settlement for $3.5 million.  Her bravery and refusal to back down set a standard that helped many women who came after her.  If it weren’t for courage like this, it’s more than likely that sexual harassment would still be considered nothing more than a part of men and women working together. 
 

Lowe’s

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This is a strange case of equal opportunity sexual harassment at a Lowe’s in Washington. Two young men and one woman were subjected to sexual harassment, and in one instance a sexual assault took place.  The female plaintiff (21 at the time) was taken into the office of the 44-year-old male store manager and allegedly sexually assaulted after weeks of being subjected to verbal and physical passes.  She had also been propositioned for sex by the same manager after she had received a promotion. When the victim complained, she was fired along with two other women who had tried to reach out for help regarding sexual harassment claims.

In 2009, Lowe’s was forced to pay a $1.7 million settlement to the victims.  The EEOC also forced Lowe’s to change its sexual harassment policies and enforcement. 

EEOC Regional Attorney William R. Tamayo had this to say: “No worker, regardless of gender or other discriminatory factors, should ever have to endure harassment in order to earn a paycheck.”  Lowe’s will now provide comprehensive training to management, non-management and all resource employees in sexual harassment awareness and how to do their part in providing a safe and discrimination-free environment. 
 

Ashley Alford

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Sexual harassment is a terrible, scarring, costly crime.  Never has it been more costly than in the case of Ashley Alford.  Alford worked for a St. Louis Aaron’s (a rent-to-own company) between 2005 and 2006.  During this time she was tormented by constant sexual harassment, culminating in two horrible assaults.  On one occasion Alford’s manager Richard Moore allegedly grabbed Alford by her ponytail and hit her in the head with his penis.  Another time he grabbed Alford by her hair, held her down and masturbated on her.  He faces criminal charges for the assaults.  Alford reported the crimes to Aaron’s, but they were never investigated, as seems to be the trend with behemoth companies.  In June 2011, however, a jury awarded Alford $95 million for what she’d been through. Unfortunately, the federal cap on sexual harassment judgment stops at around $40 million, so the rest of the money is little more than a verbal condolence.  Aaron’s plans to appeal the verdict, but in the mean time this is the largest settlement amount ever awarded for a sexual harassment case in the US.

You may have been born ugly, but your children are the future! Thanks to medical science, technology and your low self-esteem, you can now make them beautiful and live vicariously through them. All it takes is beauty pageant, a healthy checking account and no moral qualms about righteously screwing up your child’s mind.

A College Education

The average college tuition for an out-of-state student is $11,600 a year. That’s probably cold comfort to the parents of Ms. South Carolina. This mumble mouth could make a George W. Bush speech sound like it makes sense. It’s unknown if she majored in Dumbassology at Appalachian State University.

Pageant Coach

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Although the coach is probably not going to sound like Mickey from the Rocky movies, some pageant contestant parents spend up to $5000 a day coaching their kids. Apparently, answering that you want world peace and walking with a bouquet of flowers is more difficult than you thought.

Clothes

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Let’s face it, beauty pageants aren’t like doing porn. Porn producers can forgive a bad wardrobe if their starlet can suck a golfball through a garden hose. Sadly, pageant contestants need to keep their clothes on and when a clothing fail happens like this one, you’d better have your landing strip landscaped. Even if you are nine.

Botox Injections

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We all heard about the mother giving her 8 year-old daughter Botox injections, but what about the other side of the story? Oh, right, there is no other side to the story. Casey Anthony probably thinks this woman is crazy. She did wind up claiming that she was “paid 200 dollars” to lie about it as a publicity stunt. However, anyone receiving national backlash and getting visits from CPS would do the same thing.

Toddler Spray Tan

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Not only can adults look like the mutants from the Jersey Shore, now your preteen can too! Why not cap the complete destruction of your child’s childhood with the destruction of their skin? Spraying your kid with a chemical dye? How could that go wrong?

Video Equipment

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While not a tremendous expense anymore, the cost may actually come when your child posts a video on YouTube. Many beautiful contestants mistake the attention they get for actual personality. Sadly, they are never forced to watch their annoying and boring videos. Won’t someone tell them they have no taste in music?

Makeovers

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Makeovers used to be for aging housewives looking to impress the pool boy or the pizza delivery guy. Now, suddenly, children are on the list to get their look “revitalized”. A one year-old getting a facial? A one year-old needs that like Charlie Sheen needs another case of whiskey and a hotel room full of hookers. Speaking of which, with this much self-esteem being destroyed at an early age, escort services will have plenty of applicants for years to come.

Caviar for the Hair

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Just when you thought they weren’t wasting enough money on these things, let Toddlers and Tiaras show you how to turn one of the world’s most expensive appetizers into hair gel for your kid. Later in this episode, she crushes up Faberge eggs into her cereal and paints her toes with liquid gold.

Crowns

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But the most insane expense of all time is, fortunately, absorbed by the pageant organizers. In Russia, the world’s most expensive crown is over a million dollars. Apparently, Russian oligarchs ran out of places to spend their money and decided to put on it on the heads of their prettiest girls.

Glamour Shots

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Nothing like forcing your child to sit around through hours of hair and makeup before carting them off to the nearest mall for beauty shots. Stay still! Stop crying! I’ll feed you… when you make me some money! Pose, dammit! Okay, now airbrush the hell out of it.

We the people of the United States of America are a very fickle people. We like to worship our celebrities. But we also like to tear down those celebrities and harshly judge them when they mess up. We also like to forgive them… if they deserve to be forgiven. In this way we create Gods out of men and then enslave those Gods for our own entertainment and use.

The ethics of this strange societal obsession aside, when celebrities screw up and risk losing the affection the American public, they freak out. And instead of apologizing to whoever they hurt/lied to/cheated on, they apologize to us.

Bill Clinton

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Few who lived through it will ever forget the excitement of the Monica Lewinsky affair. The constantly surfacing details about rock star President Bill Clinton and bodacious office skank Monica Lewinsky dominated the airwaves and imaginations of the nineties. Most moving of all, of course, is the memory of Clinton’s forced sounding and highly stupid public apology for his personal life.

Yes, it wasn’t exactly about his personal life seeing as he brought it into the public sphere when lying obscuring the truth under oath. But still, can’t we cut the man some slack? He’s the Leader of the Free World for crying out loud. Apologizing for getting some face time with the White House interns is just plain undignified.

Ted Haggard

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Sometimes the simple truth of the daily news is much better than fiction could ever hope to be. Such is the case with the story of Mike Haggard, a perfectly framed media fable about the consequences of hate mongering and deceit.

Haggard was an evangelical preacher in a Colorado mega-church known to his congregation as devoted spiritual leader and family man. He was also a passionate fan of talking about how gay people go to hell. Then, of course, it came out that he had been doing the deed with professional escort boyfriend Mike Jones for over three years! His apology/confession was honest and troubling. Haggard alluded to the part of his personal like that was too “repulsive and dark” to even put words to. His congregation cried with pity and scowled with rage… and then, most likely, went home and called their gay prostitutes.

Tiger Woods

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In 2010 the blogosphere exploded with news about Tiger Woods and his multiple affairs. Mistresses popped up from every corner and it seemed that in mere moments golf has suddenly, miraculously, become marginally interesting to the majority of the American public.

When the amount of mistresses breeched the double digits, Tiger Woods did the sensible thing and apologized to us for cheating…on…us? Well, yes, it actually makes a lot of sense. Celebrities are property of the public and thus when they fuck up it’s a personal betrayal to every single fat-ass with a tv and a couch in the United States.

John Ensign

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John Ensign and his public apology will not be remembered. There simply won’t be enough room in the history books to record every single philandering senator in this crazy world of ours.

John Ensign cheated on his wife and had to apologize amid flashing cameras and pushy press-members about how he had ruined the lives of his wife Darlene and his children. But the question remains, why do we care? Clearly extramarital affair is somehow intrinsic to the job description of senators. Perhaps it’s vital to their performance!

Michael Phelps

Why anyone would want to succeed in athletics is beyond me. Isn’t the whole point of success to imagine having a comfy, lazy life of hedonistic pleasure, money, and sex? Isn’t that while people become actors and singers? But sportsmen only have to work, work, work and work. And while it pays off for Michael Phelps in both money and muscle tone, I bet he’d like to relax.

But when you’re famous you aren’t allowed to relax. Phelps was busted for hitting a bong in 2009. Michael Phelps was revealed not to be the only human being in America who hasn’t smoked pot to the feigned surprise of annoying people everywhere. After training every single day for his entire life to be a swimmer, Phelps then had to apologize to a bunch of strangers for something he did one night at a party.

Michael Richards

When Michael Richards screamed the N-word at his audience during a stand-up comedy routine, we all knew that we needed an apology. No, he screamed at every person in America personally, but we all felt hurt. The pain of seeing our beloved Kramer revealed as an angry, neurotic, insecure racist was something an already fragile America did not need.

So we awaited his apology and it came and we wanted so very badly to believe him. But the change in his appearance and in our perception had already been affected. He was no longer Jerry’s kooky neighbor. He was an old racist man who reminds us of our grandfathers. Done.

Mel Gibson

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Mel Gibson laid down the gauntlet. After the drunk driving arrest, the anti-semtic rant, that crazy Christian movie, and all his other bull, people will not be changing their minds about the “What Women Want” star. People either hate him, or they are like minded neo-Nazis who love him.

So it didn’t matter that his public talk-show apology was such a lame rant. He laughed like ranting about Jews is just one of those things and he went off on a rather bizarre tangent about trying to murder his toaster, but who cares? He could have gotten it all right and we still would hate him… or else be like-minded Nazis who love him.

David Letterman

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Letterman came out to say that he had had extra-marital affairs with female employees of his show. First off, it was very bizarre to hear Letterman speak so openly about his actual sexual history (line cross!) but lovely how he remained contrite, honest, humorous, and level-headed (acknowledging that this isn’t anything more than “something stupid he’s gotten himself into) all at once.

Letterman’s apology is a shining example for all celebrity philanderers, drug users, and general douche bags. He comes off in the end as a hero and a champion for the cause of standing up to extortion, blackmailing, and media pressure. Bravo!

Alec Baldwin

The American People love Alec Baldwin for his low, raspy voice which is why we were absolutely shocked to discover that it could be put to so much evil. A leaked phone message he left for his 11 year old daughter revealed Alec to be a rather sharp-tongued father, calling his daughter a rude pig and a whole lot of other disturbing insults.

While that’s definitely not cool, it’s hard to say just what makes it anyone’s business and we might wonder why he has to apologize to anyone other than his ex-wife and eleven-year old daughter. Worst of all, he apologized on “The View” as if to imply that nothing he is saying can be taken seriously by anyone… like the rest of the content on “The View.”

Hugh Grant

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America gasped to see the charmingly bewildered British “Nine Months” star get busted with prostitute Divine Brown. After all, who needs a prostitute when they’ve got Elizabeth Hurley at home? It’s hard to imagine that that woman was ever not in the mood.

But still, Hurley became the center of media obsession and had to issue a generic, cheaply made apology to all of us. He reclaimed his power in 2010 when he turned the tables on the media and shed light on the growing issue of tabloid phone tapping.

Jane Fonda

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Jane Fonda will surely go down in history alongside such luminaries as Sharon Stone and Bono as one of the most annoyingly ignorant political minds of her time.

In 1972 Fonda incurred great criticism after a ’72 trip to Viet Nam when she betrayed the United States by siding with the Vietnamese army, calling the U.S. POWs war criminals, and being photographed NVA anti-aircraft.

She offered a hurried apology but while it can’t be called insincere, it remains to be shown whether or not Fonda even understands why everyone got mad in the first place.

Mark Sanford

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In 2009 United States Governor Mark Sanford resigned after it was revealed that he had been having a long-term extramarital affair with an old friend who lived in Argentina.

Why a person should actually have to resign for this is unclear, but it’s clear that it’s yet another example of the United States’ hypocritical, schizophrenic attitudes about sex and marriage.

Mark Sanford apologized to the public and came off as a very intelligent and well worded man. It’s important to not sound too contrite. It comes off as phony. Sanford hits the perfect balance, admitting fault but putting the culture of politics on trial to a certain degree.

Gary Hart

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In 1988 a man named Gary Hart was nearly president of the United States, until it was revealed that he was involved in an extramarital affair with a woman named Donna Rice. This, quite naturally, was the moment where politicians learned to not have affairs until they were already safe and sound inside the walls of the Oval Office.

Hart apologized on Nightline after resigning as Senator. Like other politicians would after him, Hart did call the integrity of the press into question, but then reiterated that the blame is all his. But looking at the fun pictures of Hart and Rice on yachts together, it’s hard to imagine that he has many regrets.

Eliot Spitzer

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Eliot Spitzer was a politician. By extension of this statement we can guess a few things. One, he was dishonest. And two, he slept around a lot. This is what we know about politicians, isn’t it? And yet, we love to act surprised.

On March 10 2008, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was discovered to be a frequent patron of high-class prostitutes, particularly one young woman called Ashley Alexandra Dupre, who charged $1,000 an hour, which leads us to believe that being a prostitute is a better financial option than being a governor, and with the comfort of a contract with no clause against immoral sexual behavior.

Spitzer was forced to resign after issuing an apology, which is tragic as he was an early champion of same-sex marriage in New York and immigrant rights.

2011 marked the first time in years that a labor dispute — in this case, Wisconsin’s public employees being stripped of their bargaining rights — captured national media attention. The dramatic progression of events, which are detailed below, provided fodder for dinner conversations and pundit diatribes for weeks.

It also brought to light, in some ways, the weakness of labor unions against the American government. For all of the gains that labor fighters have made, more and more concessions have been made in the past forty years. Unions are at a weak point in this country, unable to protect workers from layoffs or cuts in their benefits. Organizers are hoping that the dramatic bust in Wisconsin may become a rallying point, inspire a new generation of organizers.

In the meantime, we’ve compiled a list of ten other labor protests from the dramatic history of American labor, starting from the 19th century and ending in the present day. Many of them were, technically, failures: strikes that were busted, protests that ended in bloodshed, activists that were convicted in sham trials. However, without these protests and movements, American workers wouldn’t be enjoying the benefits that most do have. The fight for labor rights didn’t end with these protests, and it won’t end now.

1874: The Tompkins Square Riot

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Fifty years before the Great Depression, there was the Great Panic: a fall in the demand for silver triggered a worldwide depression that lasted from 1873 to 1879, with high unemployment, bank failures, and business closures.

Unemployed workers organized a march from Union Square to Tompkins square, protesting for the city and state government to create more jobs. On January 13th, 1874, roughly 10,000 showed up for the march, not knowing that the city had secretly revoked their permit the night before. Hundreds of police, both on foot and horseback, met them, indiscriminately beating down men, women, and children.

The riot culminated in 46 arrests, and a loss of momentum in the unemployed movement. Strengthened by their success in dispersing the protestors, the NYPD increased its surveillance and harassment of other political organizations.

1877: The Molly Maguires

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The Molly Maguires were a secret Irish-American organization, affiliated with the Ancient Order of Hibernians. The name evoked a sort of boogeyman in the mainstream American psyche: that of the illiterate immigrant, whose loyalties and morals were questionable, and who wanted to rise above his proper station in life. The Chicago Tribune called them “a secret, oath-bound organization controlled by murderers and assassins.”

In the 1870’s, coal miners in Pennsylvania began organizing for better wages and working conditions. Franklin Gowan, president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, and of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, hired detectives to investigate into the union, and into the violence that had erupted between workers and their supervisors. One detective, James McParlan, spent two years undercover among miners, and eventually testified that twenty of the men were Molly Maguires, and had been responsible for much of the violence. Ten of the men were hanged. Gowan used the name and fearful reputation of the Molly Maguires to crush the burgeoning union, and incited vigilantism against Irish immigrants and the striking workers.

1886: The Haymarket Massacre

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In 1884, The Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions set a goal for obtaining an eight hour work day as the national standard by May 1, 1886. As the day approached, unions all over the country prepared to go on strike. In Chicago, where the movement was based, 40,000 workers went on strike. Over the next few days, thousands of protestors — unionists and their families, anarchists, socialists, and reformers — would clash with the police. On May 3, police at the McCormick reaper plant fired into an unruly crowd, killing two men and bringing tensions to a boiling point.

The next day, another rally was held in Haymarket Square, to protest the police’s violence. Close to 180 policemen were stationed in the square, ready to wade in to the crowd at the first sign of rioting. The rally seemed to be peaceful enough, until about 10 at night, when one speaker urged the crowd to “throttle” the law. At that point, the police force ordered the remaining protestors to immediately disperse. Someone in the crowd threw a bomb at the gathered officers, killing one immediately. Police drew their weapons and fired wildly, indiscriminately. Eight policemen died and sixty others were wounded, mostly by their own fire, and an indeterminate number of protesters were killed.

Hundreds of people were arrested, as newspapers published theories of anarchist conspiracies and calls for revenge, inciting hatred against immigrants and radicals. In one of the worst miscarriages of American justice eight men were put on trial for murder. There was no credible evidence against any of the defendants, and all of jurors confessed to prejudice against them. They were found guilty, and seven were sentenced to death. Four were executed, one committed suicide, and the two others had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. The two living men were pardoned seven years later by Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld. It was political suicide to do so, with popular opinion still vilifying anarchists and agitators, but Altgeld said, ‘No man has the right to allow his ambition to stand in the way of the performance of a simple act of justice.’

1910: The Garment-Workers Strike and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

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By the 1900’s, half of New York’s population were foreign-born immigrants. Many of the female immigrants worked in the garment industry, supporting themselves and their families on low-paying jobs with terrible working conditions.

Labor leaders organized a walkout of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in September of 1909, after a group of employees was fired for trying to unionize workers. Five weeks later, one of the strikers, a nineteen year-old Jewish woman named Clara Lemlich spoke out in a packed meeting, telling of the indignities of working in the garment industry. Her speech led to a city-wide general strike, with 20,000 workers walking off their jobs. Images of young women being intimidated by police and company thugs inspired public support, even among New York’s upper classes, for the workers. The companies bowed to public pressure, and agreed to negotiate with the newly unionized workers.

The unions won many of their demands, in an unparalleled victory for labor organizers. Most of the companies, however, including the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, remained in the hands of their unscrupulous owners. It took the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire for the City to impose safety standards on industrial buildings. The fire, which took place only a year after the strike, is remembered as one of America’s most horrific industrial accidents, killing 146 workers, most of them young women in the teens and early twenties. The factory’s manager had a policy of locking his workers into the floor, citing concerns of productivity and worker theft. Many of the girls were left with no choice but to burn alive or leap to their deaths on the sidewalk.

1914: The Ludlow Massacre

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Coal mining is one of the world’s most dangerous jobs: in the US alone, about 300 miners have died in accidents the past ten years. That’s not counting deaths from the diseases associated with mining, such as black lung disease.

For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, coal miners and their families lived in “company towns”, in which all the property and amenities — such as general stores, churches, and law enforcement — were owned by their employers. The system often resembled feudal townships, with the company exerting nearly total control over the miners’ lives. Ethelbert Stewart, a federal mediator on the Ludlow strike, commented that the miners were “prohibited from having any thought, voice or care in anything in life but work, and to be assisted in this by gunmen whose function it was, principally, to see that you did not talk labor conditions with another man who might accidentally know your language.” He then added, “That men have rebelled grows out of the fact that they are men.”

The United Mine Workers of America began organizing in Colorado around the turn of the 20th century. The union chose to focus on workers for the Rockefeller-owned Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, which was one of the most powerful corporations in the company at that time. In 1913, they successfully organized a strike of 11,000 workers, who were demanding safer working conditions and changes in wages; in particular, they wanted to be paid for “dead work”, such as shoring up mines to protect workers from cave-ins, rather than just by the tonnage of coal they produced.

The miners were immediately evicted from their company-owned houses, and the UMWA organized tent colonies for the workers and their families, usually near mine mouths in order to block strikebreakers. Company-hired thugs fired random shots into the tent cities, and patrolled their perimeters in armored cars with a mounted machine gun. After a months-long standoff, the strike culminated in a sudden attack on the camp by a company-organized militia on April 20, 1914. The militia fired a machine gun into the camp, and burned the tents. Two women and eleven children suffocated to death in one fire, and several of the camp’s organizers were captured and executed. Nineteen people died that day. The massacre sparked off even more fighting between miners and company guards, killing dozens before President Woodrow Wilson called in federal guards to subdue the fighting.

1916: The Everett, WA Massacre

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The IWW has always been one of the more radical and socialist-leaning labor organizers in America. It was founded as a counterpoint to the American Federation of Labor, contending that all workers should stand united with each other, taking possession of the means of production and abolishing the wage system. To many in America, particularly businesses and politicians, the Wobblies represented a dangerous and seditious group, particularly after they came out in protest of America’s involvement in the first world war.

On November 16, 1916, two boatloads of Seattle-based Wobblies set out for Everett, a small town in the northern bend of Puget Sound, to show support a group of striking shingle weavers. They were met by a force of over 200 men, many of them who had been deputized by Everett’s sheriff for the occasion. The Snohomish County Sheriff, Donald McRae, drew his gun as the first boat drew into port, and asked who the leader of the group was. The IWW men famously answered “We all are!” A shot was soon fired, though which side shout first has always been disputed, and the whole scene quickly devolved into a shootout. The Wobblies were largely, but not completely unarmed, and when the firefight finally ended, two deputies and between five and twelve IWW men were dead.

The boats reversed out of the port and returned to Seattle. When they landed, police arrested 74 Wobblies, and charged one of them, Thomas H. Tracy, with murder. Tracy was later acquitted. This was the beginning of the end for the IWW in America, however. The US government used WWI as an excuse to crush the movement, and incite attacks against the workers elsewhere in the country, effectively crippling the organization.

1919: The Seattle General Strike

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During the two years that America was involved in the first World War, wages were controlled in order to keep inflation down. After the Armistice in 1918, employers were reluctant to raise wage scales back to their pre-war rates. In Seattle, disgruntled shipbuilders started agitating for a higher wages for workers. When the company rejected their demands, 35,000 workers went on strike on January 21, 1919.

Other unions in the city showed almost unilateral support for the shipyard workers, testifying to the Seattle Central Labor Council and calling for an immediate general strike. On February 6, almost 25,000 union members across the city walked off their jobs, effectively paralyzing the city. Different committee were formed, working to distribute food and provide essential services, such as garbage removal, to the city’s people. The strike, which lasted for a week, was peaceful. No arrests were made in connection to the protests.

Seattle’s mayor Ole Hanson called in federal troops, supposedly to “restore order”, and waged a war of words on the movement, using the specter of communism to scare away popular support. Labor organizers began to get nervous that the general strike would set back their efforts in the city, and union members began to go back to work. By February 11, the general strike was over.

After the strike, Seattle’s Mayor retired from politics to become a lecturer. He took credit for dismantling an attempted revolution, while state and federal governments used the strike as an excuse to pass anti-syndicalism laws. The new laws set a precedent for increased harassment and arrests of radicals, and eventually became the fuel for the First Red Scare.

1920: The Battle of Matewan

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Matewan, West Virgina, is a small town on the Tug river, right near the Kentucky border, deep in coal mining country. Like with the Ludlow strikers in Colorado, the miners lived in company towns, earning low wages under harsh conditions. The UMWA began organizing coal workers in southern Appalachia in January, and by that spring, 3000 men had signed on. Both the police chief, Sid Hatfield, and the mayor of Matewan openly supported the miners in their efforts to organize, a rarity on this list.

On May 20, thirteen detectives from the Baldwin-Felts Agency arrived in Matewan. They had been hired by the coal companies to evict union workers from their company-owned houses. Word of the evictions spread rapidly through the town, and a crowd confronted them at the railroad depot.

Chief Hatfield attempted to arrest one of the detectives, and the detectives resisted. Someone fired a shot, and the two sides exchanged gunfire. When it was over, two miners and Cabel Testermen were dead, as well as seven of the detectives. Sid Hatfield became a folk hero to Appalachian miners, and then a martyr when the remnants of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency assassinated him in Welch, West Virginia. The killing sparked off a wave of violence between miners and company-hired strongmen. The violence culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain, a ten-day insurrection by armed coal miners, and the largest armed conflict in the US, second only to the Civil War.

1981: The Air Traffic Controllers’ strike

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The influence of organized labor waxed and waned in cycles in the middle of the century. The affluence of the 1920’s and rising anti-communist sentiment following the Bolshevik revolution in Russia curtailed it, while WWII saw a sharp rise in union membership due to war production. After the presidencies of Roosevelt and Truman, however, who had labor sympathies, a number of acts were passed that limited the influence and power of unions.

The final blow, in many ways, came in 1981, soon after Ronald Regan was elected president. Several unions, including the Air Traffic Controllers and the Teamsters, had supported Regan’s campaign after being disappointed by the Carter administration’s support of the FAA, their employers. On August 31, 1981, 13,000 members of the PATCO union struck for higher wages, a 32-hour work-week, and better working conditions.

Because the PATCO was made up of governmental workers, the strike was, by law, prohibited. Ronald Regan declared the strike to be a danger to national security, and ordered the strikers back to work. Only 10% of the strikers followed his order, while the rest continued to press their demands. Regan issued an ultimatum to the workers: return to work within 48 hours, or their jobs would be forfeit.
When the 48 hours were over, Regan fired the 11,345 air traffic controllers still on strike and blacklisted them from further federal service, ushering in an era of renewed union-busting.

2011: Wisconsin Protests

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Issues of labor were brought to the forefront of American discourse in February, with newly elected tea-party Republicans turning their focus on reducing union power. On February 14th, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker put forth his State Budget Repair Bill. The bill proposed increased payments by state employees to cover healthcare and pension costs, and stripped out collective bargaining rights. Without these rights, state employees’ unions would be unable to bargain for working condition policies, such as overtime, health care and pensions, health and safety, and working hours. The only thing public employees’ unions would be able to bargain for would be wage scales.

Walker rejected Democrats and union leaders’ offer to accept the bill without the collective bargaining amendment, saying that it “stood in the way of local governments and school districts being able to balance their budget.” State Democrats left the state on February 20, leaving the state legislature without enough senators to pass a fiscal bill.

Protestors flooded the capitol in the tens of thousands; as many as 70,000 protestors were reported on February 19, growing to 100,000 a week later. Other protests were staged around the country in solidarity. The protests were entirely peaceful; there were no arrests, citations, or property damage, according to Madison police force spokesmen.

It was a month of long, nasty political dealing: Walker attempted to con and threaten the missing Senators into coming back, while alternatively belittling and intimidating protestors. On March 9, in an underhanded move, the state Senate stripped the bill of all fiscal measures, which meant that they could pass it without a quorum. And pass it they did, in an 18-1 vote. A judge immediately issued a stay on the bill, and the Attorney General has vowed to fight for an appeal. The status of Wisconsin’s public employees’ rights are still up in the air, but many have vowed to continue to fight.

The law was designed with the challenged grasp of the collective American intellect in mind. Thankfully, the power of the law extends to everyone — even those still too young to enjoy the subtle meaning behind the words of Pat the Bunny. These are ten of the most ruthless underage exercisers of national rights that should serve as an inspiration and a reminder to everyone, however young — to watch their ass.

The Gravelles

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In a media-intensive debacle that has since come to be known as the ‘caged kids’ case, 11 special needs children were subjected to an imprisoned lifestyle in the home of Michael and Sharon Gravelle. Fortunately the food deprivation and physical discomfort which the Gravelles inflicted upon their foster children didn’t get written off as ‘tough love’ in the courts. The Gravelles were sentenced to two years in 2005 and the 11 adopted children were awarded 1.2 million dollars by Huron County in March 2010. As a slightly more generous social victory, their case made it that much more difficult for maniacs to get a hold of ‘hard to place’ children in Ohio.

Son Sues Mother over Facebook

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In the post-postmodern age, no force of God or nature stands between a teenager and his social network — least of all filial obligation. In the spring of last year, Denise New was found the guilty of accusations of bad parenting, immaturity, and straight-up rudeness after she hacked into her son’s Facebook account and posted inappropriate things about him on his page. New was forced to pay a fine of $435 as well as to attend anger management classes in order to have continued access to her son. It was a ruling that could have only come out of 21st century values — and stands as perhaps the first truly modern amendment to the 5th commandment.

Gregory Kingsley

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In 1992, a twelve year old known only as Gregory K made the unusually informed choice to divorce his biological parents in favor of two foster parents more sensitive to his needs. More important than the court ruling to give Gregory his wish, he had the further privilege of being played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a 1993 television film of his life story—perhaps the more stunning detail of an otherwise routinely tragic story of parental neglect.

William Stowell

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Aren’t 21-year-olds always wondering why their sex lives aren’t as good as they should be? William Stowell made the question public in his 2000 law suit to sue the doctor and hospital that were jointly responsible for his circumcision at birth. Stowell’s lawyer had won $65,000 in a similar circumcision case some years before, starting a popularity streak in anti-circumcision law for the new millennium. In an attempt to hush the case up, both settled with Stowell for an undisclosed amount in 2003 — proof that even in our enlightened age, the issue of what to do with one’s foreskin is still as controversial as ever.

Kids vs. The Obama Administration

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As of last year, 150 U.S. citizens still of a dependent age decided they were mad as hell and weren’t going to take it anymore. The reason? Their parents had been shipped out of the country. These children of illegal immigrants are suing Obama in hopes of suspending the deportation of their parents until Congress overturns the immigration laws now in place. Whatever the outcome ends up being, it’s a victory in itself that the nation is being once more reminded that, if not for immigrants, we wouldn’t be a nation at all.

Passive Smoking

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In the suing craze of the early nineties, children of smokers were all in a huff about who to point the finger at for their premature signs of aging. Were tobacco companies to blame, though they hadn’t been doing anything differently than manufacturing the same poisonous product they’d been selling for years? The ‘passive smoking’ lawsuits put the blame on parents, co-workers and employers for exposing non-smokers in their immediate proximity to the health hazard that they personally enjoy. Before the nationwide ban on smoking in public enclosed spaces, as well as directly after it, the most prominent place for passive smoking was, for 3.7 million children, in the home.

6th Grader Sues Over Grounding

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In another astonishing feat of teenage justice, in 2008 a 12-year-old Canadian girl refused to take her grounding lying down. She exposed her father’s tyranny to the courts and found that public opinion as well as national justice was in her favor. Her father’s grounding was overturned and she got to go on the coveted class trip that was the source of all the drama, despite having bypassed the blocked websites her father had set up on their home computer, proving that even the pettiest of teenage whims can be taken seriously at the highest level of government.

Spawn of Michael Jackson

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What’s the good of having a deceased superstar dad if you can’t get a bit of press time out of it? Michael Jackson’s mother and children banded together a year after the pop star’s death to file claims of inappropriate care against AEG for providing Jackson with the strange doctor who led him astray. This February had the court ruling that the lawsuit can proceed, to the relief of fans and publicists.

Jackie Coogan

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An exploited star of the Golden Age of Hollywood was actually responsible for an entire law concerning the accessibility of dependent back accounts. Jackie Coogan’s ’Coogan Law’ was enforced after the child star (who played the eponymous ‘Kid’ in Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Kid’ in 1921) sued his parents in 1938 for having taking the bulk of his salary from his child-acting days. He won $250,000 from the case and established a new precedent in the California legal system, clearing the path for the exploited and beleaguered Lindsays, Mary-Kates and Ashleys to come.

Shirley Temple

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A case of libel at the age of nine is nothing to be taken lightly, especially when your career has just begun. Such was the grave injustice Shirley Temple faced when the esteemed film critic and man of letters Graham Greene cut down her performance in 1937’s Wee Willie Winkie for being a trifle too mature…and lecherous. Temple didn’t take kindly to any intimations of pedophilia and sued Greene and Night and Day, the film journal he wrote for, for everything they were worth. It amounted to a fine of £3,500 and the resultant bankruptcy of Night and Day, not to mention the critical exile of Greene, an immeasurable loss to the world of film writing.

The Star Wars Kid

Most times, when someone puts an embarrassing video of you on YouTube, there isn’t a monetary reward. Not so for the Star Wars kid. The family sued on behalf of the young Jedi for $250,000 and won an out of court settlement. Finally, he can afford light saber lessons from Mark Hamil. Who’s laughing now?

$40,000 Over Stolen Gum

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When a 6 year-old boy was arrested for stealing gum, the cops hauled him off to jail. For 42 cents, maybe they should’ve let that one go. He and his mother sued the 7-Eleven parent company where the “gum-napping” took place. That will probably buy him minty fresh breath for the rest of his life.

Boy Pitcher Sues Mound

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Yes, even the innocent game of baseball can’t escape litigation. When a 17 year-old pitcher fractured his right arm during a game, he and his family sued the Baseball Players Association for making the mound too big and too deep. The price? A mere $52,703, still a pay cut by Major League Baseball standards.

Lunch Money Settlement

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Ever have a bully steal your lunch money? This bully happened to be a teacher’s aide stealing $5 of lunch money from an autistic child. The jury awarded her $5700 or 11,400 sloppy joes or 28,500 bowls of lime green Jello.

$57,000 For Having Sex

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Who would’ve thought teenagers might attempt to have sex in a washroom during a dance? Unfortunately, for a prestigious school in Calgary, the staff did. In a kneejerk reaction, the school expelled the girl after a member of the country club where the dance was being held, mistakenly took the sounds of vomiting for love-making. The real question is, what’s it sound like when THAT guy has sex?

From left-handed undies to the Pontiac Aztek, some products invoke only one question: What were they thinking? The company screwups below aren’t just limited to WTF-caliber product ideas. These companies let rats infest their premises, made a customer pee in a bag, and held a fundraiser in a place best reserved for Mafia deals. Read more to see how bad it gets.

25. Left-Handed Undies

Image: Gillian/Flickr

Apparently some major research was done in regards to the maneuvers that lefties and righties have to take to fish their junk out of its cotton prison in order to answer nature’s call. One such research article talks about matters of degrees and a high level of difficulty and embarrassment. These newly designed men’s shorts purport to do away with that. Their new horizontal flap makes finding your schlong with your left hand so much easier. Gents living in the UK will never be confused about where it is or how they are supposed to get it ever again.

24. The Baby Shaker App

The world is full of classy things. This is not one of them. Whatever you think even the loudest snot-nosed little tykes, there is no excuse for this travesty of an iPhone app. It depicts various babies and plays crying sounds. When you shake your iPhone hard, the baby dies. It’s perfect for creepy sorts intent on pediatric homicide.

Apple wised up and pulled the app after CNET and other sites sunk their hooks into the story. Sadly, we can’t say we are terribly surprised that this one made it past the gate, when numerous tasteless apps, like one that tracks your girlfriend’s menstrual cycles, preceded it. It is only a matter of time before someone debuts an app where you get to drown kittens or murder Jews or….wait. There’s an app for those. Quick, someone make an app that lets you virtually murder makers of shitty apps. It’s a win-win idea!

23. Gap’s No-Go Logo

Last year, Gap execs weren’t happy with their logo, so they threw millions of dollars into a campaign to change it. This included the time, effort and money funneled into the banal, yet Herculean task of changing everything that bore the Gap logo.

If you put all that work into designing something, you better make damn sure that folks will like it, or that it will at least not damage your valuable brand image. Unfortunately for Gap, people hated the new logo, letting the company know via a social media coup. So Gap went back to basics, throwing even more time, energy and money into the gaping maw of this colossal mistake to change the logo back to what it was previously. Nowadays, all is well that ends well, except for the loss of a fat chunk of corporate change on something that didn’t ever need to happen.

22. The Pontiac Aztek

The Pontiac Aztek was designed with good intentions, but it ended up more closely resembling the Homer Mobile from the Simpsons than something people wanted to drive. Unlike other SUVs of the time, it could carry a 4′ by 8′ sheet of plywood, via seats that flattened down (though its tailgate never sat on a straight line horizontally with the interior when open). In a nod to its younger prospective owners, its center console featured a removable cooler, tent/mattress combo and built-in air compressor. It also boasted a backpack built into the space behind the driver’s seat. There were also numerous rack and storage space for skis, skates and any other sort of outdoorsy toys a hip young driver might care to bring along. For all these things, the Aztek was a sales pariah. Forecasts were for 75,000 a year. At the Aztek’s peak, it sold 27,793. In its last year, 2007, it sold a whopping 25. And so the “D’oh”-mobile passed into obscurity.

21. Stripper Fundraiser

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We all have seen how much the notion of family values permeates the right wing culture. Indeed, it’s an essential part of the brand. Bearing that in mind, why would former Chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele elect to hold an event at a BDSM-themed club with lesbian dancers? Even if Steele and his friends are secretly freaky in the sack, this isn’t the sort of thing their constituents—or the general public—wants to know about. Lesbian BDSM and conservative family values go together like PB&J, right? Big brand misfire, men.

20. New Coke

In yet another case of “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Coca-Cola’s introduction of New Coke in the mid-1980s was heralded initially as a good move. However, it ended badly. Sales dropped, PR went through the floor, and the soda company was forced to reinstate its original flavor.

Despite an initial boost of sales in the Northeast, where it was originally released in New York City, Coke’s home in the South was less than kind. The Rebs called out the execs at Coke by saying that Atlanta-based Coke had “surrendered” to the corporate Yankees by changing a time-tested thing and as American as Ma’s apple pie and grits. People in the South were genuinely broken about the loss of something they thought of as theirs. Dissent spread from there. Barely three months after the unveiling of New Coke, Old Coke—err, Coke Classic–was brought back, and not a moment too soon. Sales surged. Now New Coke is but a fading memory.

19. Snot Beer

Image: Seth Anderson/Flickr

If there’s one rule of thumb for home brewers, it’s this. Do not cut corners. Sadly, Schlitz Brewery—formerly the King of Beers until competitor Budweiser took over the top spot and picked up the phrase as their slogan–learned this to their detriment.

When other folks came in and tried to edge Schlitz out of the top spot, head man Robert Uihlein thought he could switch things up to make a cheaper, much tastier beer. Apparently the man forgot his chemistry, to say nothing of what goes into a quality beer. Though his newest beer was lighter and cheaper than ever, there were a couple of problems. After a short amount of time, the beer starting tasting more like something you’d find in a cow pasture. After a bit more time passed, the constituent parts tended to break apart, leaving a slick mess that unpleasantly resembled snot. If you thought getting a booger-flavored jellybean from Bertie Botts’ Every Flavor Beans was bad, how would you like a whole can of the stuff?

18. Ad Campaigns are Murder

Image: Anorak.co.uk

Welsh newlyweds Ben and Catherine Mullany were on the last day of their honeymoon on Antigue when they were murdered during what is believed to have been a botched robbery. As tragic as that is, someone from Ohio-based satellite TV subscription list MyDishBiz apparently got a hold of a picture of the happy couple prior to their death. This person then slapped a false testimonial under the picture, basically saying how the couple did business with this company and are stoked as a bear with a pot of honey about it. Obviously, the Mullanys were not really MyDish users. The company vowed to “find whoever did it.” Hopefully they will also institute quality- and taste control in their organization.

17. Della

Image: Dell via TheFrisky

Computers are so terribly complicated, especially for women, who often rely on their men to titrate the complex gadgets. Observing Dell’s Della, you’d think such ‘50s hogwash was true. Della created special computers that fit inside a woman’s purse. No, these weren’t those complicated and man-oriented iPad thingies, these were pastel-colored netbooks just for females. Della even had a special website with a “tech tips” section that talked about all the things your average woman could do online with her new computer. These included looking for recipes (and organizing them), finding ways to please her man, or how she could use her mini computer to keep tabs on her exercise routine and diet. The Della line went into hysterics and dropped off when its niche audience one, most likely Zsa Zsa Gabor, didn’t bite.