>Nathan Newman wrote:
>
>>If a similiar strike happened in the US, every major shop floor
>>union leader would be told the next day that there was no job for
>>them to return to. And the courts would not only uphold that
>>decision but issue an injunction against any other union member
>>threatening to strike in solidarity over those firings.
>
>Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
You said in four words what I was about to say in 40. I never thought of myself as a typical can-do American, but I'm amazed by Nathan's fatalism and negativity. Lose a single-payer referendum in California, and just give up on the whole thing. Don't figure out what you did right and wrong and how you might do better the next time, just get really really small in your ambitions. And don't look to French unions as something we might learn from - everything's different here, so it's hopeless. One thing we could learn - the French unions think and act on behalf of the whole working class, and are deeply political (and not in the sense of giving 35 million euros to some hacks). Maybe there's something to Fitch's point about having competing unions; they have to deliver to win adherents, and they've been doing a pretty good job of it.
And if a million workers went out on strike for a day, what could the bosses do?
Doug