I recently ran into a quite interesting article from Ken Laurence which was submitted to the National Lawyer's Guild and reprinted in the Sojourner Truth Organization's "Workplace Papers". It was titiled "The American labor Movement in 1974: Problems and Prespectives For The Left". In the article, Lawrence states that in 1970, "For the first time ever, a majority of the income received by national and international unions came from profits on investments - stock and bond dividends, interests on loans and bank deposits, rent on real estate holdings, etc (the total was approximately $713 million, while income from dues or per capita tax, fees, fines and assessments came to $667 million" "So unions don't have to have members to make money anymore and investing the union's assets in securities actually brings in more profit than investing in organizing, for the first time in history. Actually, members are more expensive to have than it seems, since about half of the money THEY pay gets returned in the form of benefits from the national and international unions, where none of the other does" Is anyone on the list aware if these facts still hold true today - and if so, does anyone have any figures on the current ratio? Curtis Price Baltimore
