First, unions are not a good in themselves; they can help rationalize
terminatons, they can unionize workers only to legitimize arbitrary
workplace hierarchies (as Herbert Hill has argued for years); they can
limit workers' initiative and lock them into conservative agreements. But
then *THe Nation* should have given a column to someone like Peter
Rachleff who has a deep grasp of the theoretical and practical
complexities of unionization.
>> Wrong. Unions are good in themselves. They represent preliminary efforts at workers' self-govt. Therefore, even when they adopt wrong positions -- legitimize arbirtrary workplace hierarchies, rationalize terminations, etc. -- they provide arenas in which workers can debate and change such policies. Without such arenas, the debate cannot even begin.
Dan Lazare