As one of the women academic signers of the letter on welfare, I don't think it's purpose was to segregate women (least of all women economists). It was a statement by academic women (better yet, Doug, you might ask the class question of why academic women) who have either studied welfare or are in some related field. When Fran Piven approached me to sign on (yes, Virginia I will sign on to almost anything progressive as far too many people are still living under the fear of McCarthyism and those of us in privileged positions have an obligation to sign as many petitions, letters, protests, etc, as we can possibly hack) any, when Fran approached me and asked me to sign and find some more signatures I figured rather than debate the fine point of why women (why not?) that I would seek out labor educators and academic women who have strong links to the labor movement to try within the narrow confines of why Linda Gordon and Fran were looking for, help to broaden the representation by adding labor names. The big question is where is labor on this. In fact, where is labor on Newt. It seems to me that we should be leading the charge. In contrast to the stunning silence this side of the border, I've been talking with unions in Canada about their fight back preparations, education and campaign around the yet to be released federal budget in February 1995. Of course, maybe brother Case is better informed than I am and knows of the great discussions and education that is taking place inside of the labor movement. My view isn't that US labor is too much of a "talk shop" it's rather that on key issues in society and politics that it is a non-participant. That politics at the level of national issues like welfare reform, or the attack on social programs, aren't countered. Rather we're hung up with the all encompassing issue of potentially amendments to 8 (a) 2 in the Wagner Act. You can appreciate why the 84% of workers who are not organized fail to appreciate the leadership of organized labor at this point in history. Elaine Bernard
