On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 3:01 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Don't you think that it's a mistake to generalize from one union -- > the Teamsters, a notoriously bad union -- to all unions? After all, > there are a variety of unions. > > However, the vast majority of people on the Marxian left would agree > that almost all of the unions in the US are poor in some way: they > hardly live up to their potential as representatives of their > class.
What an understatement! As far as I can tell, it is very, very accurate to think of present-day unions in the US as special interest lobbying groups whose sole mission is to maximize the income of their own dues-paying members, without regard for anything else including the rest of the working class. I cannot think of one single substantial example where a union did something to advance the interests of working class people other than their own dues-paying members. I think unions as they exist today are doomed to extinction and this is a bad thing for one and only one reason: as awful as they are, they are the only restraint that exists on corporate greed. I think progressives would be well-served trying to develop a better, more broadly-based institution to stand up against corporations or convincing unions to reform themselves into such an institution. > I think that the phrase "people hate unions" is simplistic, i.e., > one-dimensional. Perhaps, but it is accurate. See the stats cited by Doug Henwood. -raghu. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
