I've noticed in some media reports there's also an almost *resentful* attitude towards the high salaries dock workers make, comparing them to ballplayers' salaries - as if ballplayers were as vital to supply and distribution of vital goods the way dock workers are. If you'll remember, the baseball strikes were written off by many commentators as "millionaires vs. billionaires," and some anti-union media figures have tried the same tack here. It's an odd position some conservatives find themselves in, having to actually come out *against* people who make good salaries, as they are normally the cheerleaders for the individualistic ethos of people making a smuch money as they can in this "land of opportunity." So that just leads me to believe that it's not a resentment of salaries but of organized working class bargaining power that lies at the root of it. The high pay of dock workers is one of the better arguments for unionization one could find nowadays.
The following pertinent comments are from a Texas AFL-CIO news release. It sums up some positions on all sides of this matter. Thought I'd pass it along.
Brian
--
"The employers got what they wanted - the ports will be reopened," Richard Mead, president of the longshoremen's local in the San Francisco area, told the New York Times. "We now have a new dock boss. His name is George W. Bush. Will the workers listen to Boy George? I don't know."
The Journal quoted ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone, who said the invoking of the Taft-Hartley law "seems to be Bush's model of labor relations, to side with the employers and penalize the workers. He is setting a dangerous precedent."
The Times noted that the Teamsters, who have been supportive of Bush, are not happy. This is significant because Bush implied publicly that truck drivers and other union members would be pleased to see him step in.
Indeed, the National Association of Manufacturers, in the person of one Pat Cleary, is singing the same verse, declaring in an AP story, "Frankly, are people really going to go to the polls and pull the lever based on how this dispute played out? I don't think so. It will have no effect."
Cleary then presumed to speak for labor, saying union leaders whom Bush has been courting, such as Teamsters President James P. Hoffa and Carpenters President Doug McCarron, care more about jobs than an arcane labor law. Cleary also said "just" 10,500 dockworkers were affected by Bush's decision, AP reports.
The available evidence suggests unions are speaking for themselves on the matter.
The New York Times reports that the Teamsters don't like what happened.
"We're extremely disappointed," said Bret Caldwell, a spokesman for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. "The whole strategy of locking out the workers and urging the president to invoke Taft-Hartley was clearly an employer strategy to get around negotiating a contract with these workers. It's a bad precedent. It gives management the upper hand."
--
"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents." - Arthur Schopenhauer