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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>----- Original Message ----- </FONT></DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>From: "Doug Henwood" <</FONT><A
href="mailto:dhenwood@panix.com"><FONT face=Arial
size=2>dhenwood@panix.com</FONT></A><FONT face=Arial
size=2>></FONT></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>>Having a Democratic President did not make a
massive difference in helping<BR>>unions organize MORE members to keep up
with expanding employment in the<BR>>economy, but it did prevent the massive
LOSS in members that occurred during<BR>>the active assault on unions that
was assisted by the Reagan-Bush<BR>>administrations.<BR>><BR>>A
statistic that obscures that difference is a bad statistic.<BR><BR>-It'd take
more sophisticated econometrics than I can do, but you're <BR>-forgetting that
the Reagan years were also a time of massive <BR>-manufacturing job losses,
unlike the Clinton years, and manufacturing <BR>-was disproportionately
unionized. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I'm not forgetting it- in fact I mentioned it in my
posts. Which just goes to show why qualitative discussions are needed, rather
than throwing out quantitative numbers for periods that are not necessarily
comparative. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><BR><FONT face=Arial size=2>>Your use of absolute numbers rather than
density reminds me of those <BR>>Republican budgeteers who try to prove that
budget cuts aren't really <BR>>cuts at all because the nominal dollar amount
of spending was up. I <BR>>guess nominal union counts are important if you're
a union president <BR>>wanting to maximize the dues flow, but if you're
interested in <BR>>working class power, than the density numbers are more
important.<BR></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Low blow- I never said union density was
unimportant. I was emphasizing that you were ignoring the realities of
organizing and missed the difference between a legal environment assisting
decertification and management-led union-busting strikes versus a period where
the legal environment is less hostile and thus fewer members are lost, even
though it is still had trouble doing positive organizing.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Comparing GOP budget leaders who can themselves
decide what level of spending to allocate to union leaders struggling to
increase union density in a hostile corporate environment where one out of ten
members in a union drive gets fired is cute, but offensive to those who struggle
so hard to organize. You can throw out your statistics and the insults to
the integrity of union leaders, but the reality between an absolute loss of 1.3
million members versus current members holding on in the face of the corporate
assault is very real.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- Nathan Newman</FONT></DIV>
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