>
> On Feb 21, 2011, at 10:10 AM, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>
> > Exactly what I was thinking. Although isn't it just like a US news
> > organization to find the union people who think that what unions are
> doing
> > is risky, no matter what they're doing? They'd be writing almost exactly
> the
> > same story if teachers had sat on their hands last week, just with some
> of
> > them saying, "not doing anything is really risky. this could snowball and
> it
> > could kill us."
>
> I don't think they'd be writing that.
Hm. I still think they would. Is your thinking that the media would be more interested in reinforcing the good idea of unions doing nothing than in "exposing" fractures within labor and in suggesting that labor is so weak that anything they (don't) do could be the last thing they (don't) do?
I know, counterfactual hypotheticals and all.
> But the story is an interesting window into the constricted brains of the
> U.S. labor leadership, which is always hypercautious and frightened - not
> only of their opponents, but of their members too.
>
> Back in the late 1980s, I think it was, during a labor upsurge in South
> Korea, an AFL-CIO (or maybe it was AAFLI) hack on the scene was quoted in
> the WSJ saying that the problem with Korean unions was that they didn't know
> how to control their rank and file. Always a problem when your business is
> cutting deals and being the hopeless very junior partner.
>
Yes, I agree here. Although, alas, not so much "interesting" as "confirming everything we already knew."
j
>
> Doug
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