9/5/10

A brief history of BigGov unionism

Amity Shlaes takes on Two Americas
This weekend we celebrate Labor Day in a country divided between two kinds of workers. The first is the private-sector worker, the vulnerable one who rides the business cycle without shock absorbers. The second worker, who works for the government, lives a cushioned existence in which terminations take years, pension amounts are often guaranteed, and recessions are only thunder in the distance. Yet worse than this division is the knowledge that the private-sector worker will pay for public-sector comfort with ever higher taxes.

How did we get here? Over the course of the past century, officials and politicians of both parties have sought to shut unions out of government or, when that failed, constrain their power within government. Early 20th-century strikes by police and other public employees were effective but proved politically damaging. Over time, the unions opted for a more quiet form of coercion—what might be called compensation coercion. Their success in this area brought them to the privileged ground they hold today.

The origins of our current predicament began back in 1912.
(from wsj.com)

Labor, Pacifism, Cold War, Black September

On this day: September 5
The French National Convention initiates the Reign of Terror (1793)

The first U.S. Labor Day parade is held in New York City (1882)

The pacifist Zimmerwald Conference begins (1915)

The U.S. declares its neutrality in World War II (1939)

Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet Union embassy clerk, defects to Canada, exposing Soviet espionage in North America, signaling the beginning of the Cold War (1945)

Palestinian terrorist group called 'Black September' attack and take hostage 11 Israel athletes at the Munich Olympic Games; 2 die in the attack and 9 die the following day (1972)

Hanns Martin Schleyer is kidnapped in Cologne, West Germany by the Red Army Faction and is later murdered (1977)

b: Jesse James (1847), Paul Volcker (1927); d: Karl Harrer (1926), Richard Walther Darré (1953), Ivan Mihailov (1990)

Community Organizing for the New Progressive Era
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