WL's choice of article: "But there’s also been a backlash against labor generally. In 2009, for the first time ever, support for unions in the Gallup poll dipped below fifty per cent. A 2010 Pew Research poll offered even worse numbers, with just forty-one per cent of respondents saying they had a favorable view of unions, the lowest level of support in the history of that poll."......
"......the Center for American Progress, shows that, when times are bad, the approval ratings of government, business, and labor tend to drop in sync; voters, it seems, blame all powerful institutions equally. And although organized labor is much less powerful than it once was, voters don’t seem to see it that way: more than sixty per cent of respondents in the 2010 Pew poll said that unions had too much power. " COMMENT: Tsk, tsk, tsk. Seek and you shall find. The "unpopularity" of labor unions is well known among the rank and file, we only desire that it be more democratic and less treacherous, we also understand that we just can't live without them; the phenomenon is a perfect example of what seems to be but isn't. Unions are a working class organizations that became a form of class rule, as demonstrated in the advanced socialists countries before their undoing [as a result of the economic pressure imposed by imperialism, externally; and revisionism, internally.... as understood by REAL communists]. Today, unions are still the leading form of class organization and struggle used by the proletariat the world over, indubitably. And nowadays, as jobs are eliminated and unions undone by the bourgeois enemies of our class, union organizers are diligently serving their class and rekindling the efforts to empower the working class through our trade union organizing, despite the wrecking attempts by revisionists and enriched labor hacks. Here I include two distinct and opposed opinions concerning the fate of the unions; and the reader can notice the similarities as raised in the arguments by the anti unionist/ anti working class elements here. First, the bad one: http://www.unionfreeamerica.com/killing_jobs.htm and then, the good one: Waging War On American Workers http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman090111D.htm f580 --- On Fri, 1/14/11, waistli...@aol.com <waistli...@aol.com> wrote: From: waistli...@aol.com <waistli...@aol.com> Subject: [MLL] State Of The Unions To: marxist-leninist-list@lists.econ.utah.edu Date: Friday, January 14, 2011, 1:28 AM The Financial Page State Of The Unions by James Surowiecki January 17, 2011 . In the heart of the Great Depression, millions of American workers did something they’d never done before: they joined a union. Emboldened by the passage of the Wagner Act, which made collective bargaining easier, unions organized industries across the country, remaking the economy. Businesses, of course, saw this as grim news. But the general public applauded labor’s new power, even in the face of union tactics that many Americans frowned on, like sit-down strikes. More than seventy per cent of those surveyed in a 1937 Gallup poll said they favored unions. Seventy-five years later, in the wake of another economic crisis, things couldn’t be more different. The bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler saved the jobs of tens of thousands of U.A.W. workers, but were enormously unpopular. In the recent midterm elections, voters in several states passed initiatives making it harder for unions to organize. Across the country, governors and mayors wrestling with budget shortfalls are blaming public-sector unions for the problems. And in polls public support for labor has fallen to historic lows. The hostility to labor is most obvious in the attacks on public-sector workers as what Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota’s former governor, calls “exploiters”— cosseted, overpaid bureaucrats whose gold-plated pension and health plans are busting state budgets. But there’s also been a backlash against labor generally. In 2009, for the first time ever, support for unions in the Gallup poll dipped below fifty per cent. A 2010 Pew Research poll offered even worse numbers, with just forty-one per cent of respondents saying they had a favorable view of unions, the lowest level of support in the history of that poll. In part, this is a simple function of the weak economy. The statistician Nate Silver has found a historical correlation between the unemployment rate and the popularity of unions. Furthermore, an analysis of polling data by David Madland and Karla Walter, of the Center for American Progress, shows that, when times are bad, the approval ratings of government, business, and labor tend to drop in sync; voters, it seems, blame all powerful institutions equally. And although organized labor is much less powerful than it once was, voters don’t seem to see it that way: more than sixty per cent of respondents in the 2010 Pew poll said that unions had too much power. Read more _http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/01/17/110117ta_talk_surowiecki#ixzz1B04VUfHY_ (http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/01/17/110117ta_talk_surowiecki#ixzz1B04VUfHY) _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
