> There's some interesting poll data on U.S. public attitudes towards
unions at <http://www.aflcio.org/labor99/am_attitude.htm>. Big news:
fewer people with negative attitudes, with a shift towards neutral
and even positive.<
research by ACIRRT here in australia shows that whereas previously, the numbers of union members was disproportionate to those who said that they wanted to be in a union (as in more were members than wanted to be), today, that situation is reversed here, with more people wanting to be in unions than are. is it a case of distance makes the heart grow fonder, a recognition of the necessity of unions, the collapse of the integrative organisation of unions with the abolition of compulsory arbitration that made unions the conveyors of workplace discipline, the rediscovered oppositionality of the union movement, a combination of all of the above? (there's also some evidence in some workplaces an influx of new members has actually forced the union to radicalise its strategies and demands, suggesting that there are potential union members who either have not been in unions because they deemed them too wishy-washy or that a younger generation of workers is in fact much more demanding and have more radical expectations of the role of the union.)
what are the important elements in the US?
Angela _________