> It's a real shame that organized labor is such a wimp. Would be nice to
> see the machinists going ahead with their strike, in effect giving the
> Bush adminsitration the middle finger. The airlines and the Bushies
> might have some success bad-mouthing the machinists, but I think the
> mood of the population has changed since the PATCO strike.
According to the New Republic, the Bushies are keeping their mouths shut when it comes to labor, and the public mood is swinging back.
mark
http://www.tnr.com/031901/lizza031901.html
WHITE HOUSE WATCH Labor Pain by Ryan Lizza
Post date 03.08.01 | Issue date 03.19.01
[ . . . ]
In April 1992, when former President Bush signed the original order, he did it in a Rose Garden ceremony flanked by Charlton Heston and Harry Beck, the man who had brought the Supreme Court case. W., on the other hand, issued his executive order with virtually no comment. There are reasons for that. For one, conservatives are so solidly behind this administration that there is little need for political symbolism aimed at the base. For another, W. has a history of quietly undermining labor. Texas is a right-to-work state with weak labor laws; so, unlike Republican governors from states like Pennsylvania or Illinois, Bush has never had to publicly accommodate unions or, for that matter, publicly battle them. In Texas he populated boards that oversaw occupational standards and workers' compensation almost entirely with representatives of the business community, even when statutes called for a labor/management mix (see "Taking Care of Business," by John B. Judis, TNR, August 16, 1999). And, as in Washington, he did it while rarely addressing the issue publicly.
But there's another reason for W.'s silence: Unions, while still losing members and damaged by the election results, are actually more popular with the public than they have been in years. In the early '80s, Reagan could pick high-profile fights with the unions--e.g., his firing of 12,000 striking air-traffic controllers in the first year of his presidency--partly because many Americans saw labor as arrogant and corrupt. Today, according to a January survey by Peter D. Hart Research, the percentage of people telling pollsters they have a negative opinion of unions has declined sharply--from 34 percent to 18 percent since the early '90s. That's part of the reason Bush almost never says anything negative in public about unions, even as he tries to quietly roll back many of the gains they made under Clinton.
And the unions can expect things to get worse. In about a week, debate will begin on campaign finance reform. Bush has signaled he won't sign anything that doesn't include paycheck protection, which would take Beck a step further by requiring unions to get permission from members before using dues for political purposes. On the minimum wage, Bush wants states and localities to be able to opt out of any increase. Bush has announced a 5 percent cut in discretionary spending for the Labor Department and indicated that his emphasis will be less on rigorous enforcement than on helping business voluntarily comply with labor laws. And, most important of all, Bush is in a position to replace three members of the powerful National Labor Relations Board as well as the board's general counsel. All of which has union officials experiencing that sinking feeling.