Digby is following the Hollywood writers strike and has a terrific post on how the issues here aren't solely specific to their industry. Strong unions make for a better working environment for us all. But the money quote goes to Kevin Hayden who expands on the theme.
I’d advance that further. Not only does heavily unionized Europe have a stronger and more fiscally sound set of economies that the world’s lenders now trust more than ours, but they all have universal health care, better social safety networks, better primary public education and lots of those supposedly evil socialism policies that we’re told will weaken us and make us lazy and poor and dependent.
So why is the big money betting on the strength of those economies? and I’m not just talking about foreign investors as the financially brilliant billionaire Warren Buffett announced some months ago he was also betting against the dollar.
Apparently, a blend of capitalism, unionism and socialism is not such a bad thing. Big borrowing and massive defense spending while giving massive tax breaks to the richest in America is proving to be the weaker model.
It seems to me that many Americans have mixed feelings about unions in general and it's easy to vilify them when corruption scandals occassionally emerge, but overall unions do operate on behalf of the working class. It always strikes me as odd that the same people who bash illegal immigrants for driving down wages, are equally as vehement against unions who put the pressure on corporate to keep wages high. Even if you're not in a union, in the big picture, that works to all our benefit.
No comments:
Post a Comment