Nation endorses wanker Mark Green for NYC mayor

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Aug 14 11:21:30 PDT 2001


Nathan Newman wrote:


>Contracts to negotiate- what a terrible thing for unions to concentrate on,
>especially when decent wages are one of the best ways to pump money into
>low-income communities. It is your scorn for union contracts as a solution
>to low-income poverty that is a big part of your whole political position.

That is just totally untrue. I'm pretty uncompromising in my support for unions. Even bad ones are better than no unions at all. I even belong to one, and have for a long time.

But in order to avoid alienating Rudy, the NYC unions have been almost entirely inaudible throughout his reign - not only on macro policy, but even on workfare, which used to be a third rail issue for them. Even the esteemed pwog Dennis Rivera has barely uttered a peep. Of course the biggest union, DC37, is in crisis because of revelations of its profound corruption over the decades - really really rank stuff, like embezzlement and fixed contract votes. It'd be nicer if they could have delivered some decent contracts, like in Bevona's day at 32B-32J, but not even that. NYC workers have gotten a whole lot of nothing for years.


>Doug, have you ever supported a candidate who had a chance of winning
>office?

I'm thinking of voting for Bloomberg, because I think that any hope for a progressive revival in NYC requires severe injury to the Democratic machine. But otherwise, I'm proud to support only losers!

Doug



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