In my cohort, middle-to-upper-middle-income IT people at a public university in Southeast Michigan, I see a lot of the same attitudes towards unions as in the Detroit News editorial and in the poll above: (paraphrasing) "maybe unions were good for people once, but now they're too expensive, and they're holding the state back". I share the analysis that Alan gives below on the actual situation that the paper does not address. I wonder, what successful arguments have people employed against pro-austerity, anti-union arguments like these? I am not talking about trying to convince the editorial writers of the Detroit News necessarily, but (say) their readers-- middle-income Southeast Michigan residents who by virtue of their class position probably should be in a union, but are not, either due to their ideology or due to organizing failures? A vague question, I know, but if anyone has any book or website pointers, I would be happy to see them.
-Aaron
On Mon, 7 Sep 2009 22:18:13 -0400 Alan Rudy wrote
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090907/012472.html
>It's the Detroit News...
>A paper utterly and completely devoid of any kind of historical or political
>analysis whatsoever. This crap goes at least as far back to Gov. Engler's
>ridiculous commitment to tax cuts and his avoidance/displacement of the
>crisis - by spending the state's surplus rather than deal with the crisis he
>and his administration contributed mightily to (though some, quite properly,
>would say it goes back to the Reagan recession's devastating consequences
>for Michigan. It also can be closely tied to an obstructionist Republican
>Senate, still committed to the same silliness, and a pro-business Democrat,
>Granholm, who's yet - after six/seven years! - to call them on their BS...
>no wonder Obama and Granholm get on so well...
>That this stuff has been going on parallel to constantly raising the bar for
>tenure, promoting universities as engines of regional growth rather than the
>roots of a healthy citizenry (however much this was most often honored in
>the breach in the past), devaluing teaching in preference for the pursuit of
>external grants to cover declining public allocations, and continuing grad
>program primarily about providing cheap TA/RA/Temp support rather than
>producing exceptional professional teacher/scholars in most instances only
>serves to make matters worse.
>Not that any of the press, or university administrations, see this.
original message: Mon Sep 7 11:45:46 HST 2009 Right wing to unions: give in (c.b.) http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20090907/012467.html