Reply #20: Thanks, Steve, you made a few points that I'd have like to make on this thread, but didn't. [View All]

What must be bore in mind is that the labor movement has been under savage and well financed attack for as long as anyone can recall. But it picked up intensity greatly since the Reagan so-called "Revolution"

Until the passagage of the Norris-Laguardia Act in 1932, unions were pretty close to being illegal. Any jugge could issue a crippling injunction for "restraint of trade", and many did. Here's one example:
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The judge who issued an injunction against the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in Philadelphia in 1922, declaring that "This organization is no corporation, should have no legal recognition and should be driven out of all existence as a menace to the nation" was an extreme instance, yet he helps to explain labor's ingrained fear of judicial control.

http://newdeal.feri.org/survey/sg41577.htm
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And in the Thirties, in many workplaces, it was a firing offense to wear a union button! THAT is the "Right To Work" "culture" that Corporate America would like to return this nation to. I'm not denying much narrow-minded and destructive "self-interest" in the American labor movement; and "thuggishness" too. Not surprisingly, most of that is displayed by the most "Right-wing" (and Bush-supporting) unions!

pnorman