If you were any more thin-skinned, you'd be transparent. I agree that unionizations should integrate industries. I'd love to see the UAW push on parts, which, as you say, is hard because it's scattered, but it should be pushed. I'd love to see the UAW go after Honda and Toyota, which are not scattered. I'd be happy if someone else was organizing TAs, although after my experience with the AFT in Michigan, if I were a TA again (nevermore, thank God!), I'd think twice about looking to an AFT affiliation. I don't think that organizing TAs diverts much (if any) from UAW resources; as someone asid, they are largely self-organizing anyway. When I worked at the UAW Legal Dept, I did one little project, maybe three days work, for the Berkeley drive, something about RAs and graders: the rest of the time I worked on auto. Bringing the TAs into the UAW seems nonetheless to me to be consistent with industrial unionist principles, particularly in view of the increasing integration of higher education and large scale industry. But there is no question but that the UAW ought to be doing more in auto, and could be.
jks
>From: LeoCasey at aol.com
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: UAW losses in 2000
>Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 09:32:31 EDT
>
>Justin:
> > << Said like a business unionist! Me, I still believe in social and
> > industrial unionism, but I'm a dinosaur. >>
> >
>
>I see it didn't take very long to be back to argument by insult.
>
>As a matter of fact, the argument I made with respect to one union
>organizing
>one industry, in order to consolidate and maximize bargaining power of the
>workers in that industry, is quite clearly the classical industrial
>unionist
>argument. There are parts of the industrial unionist heritage we need to
>rethink and revise, but the principle of one union to one industry is not
>one
>of them. In an age of ever greater integration, the need for integration
>among workers and their unions has never been clearer.
>
>Leo Casey
>United Federation of Teachers
>260 Park Avenue South
>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
>
>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
>It never has, and it never will.
>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
>-- Frederick Douglass --
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