Reagan on unions & collective bargaining

[mahnmut]

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"Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.

They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

You and I must protect our freedom here, or it will not be passed on to our children and it will disappear everywhere in the world."

Comments

[tniassaint.livejournal.com]

funny how the right can be so... I dunno - blind to their own vices.

[kardashev.livejournal.com]

This is nothing new. And not from just repubs. I remember how the American left kept bitching about "omg corporate welfare!" back in the 1990s. But now? "Yay! Obama bailout and stimulus plan is just what we need!"

Don't be fooled, dude. The American right and left are both full of shit and will change their respective tunes whenever convenient. The only thing that never changes is when they point at the other sidea and yell, "But it's all THEIR fault!!!"

[ghoststrider.livejournal.com]

FDR on collective bargaining by public employees:

“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.”
[...]
“Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.”

Moar info.

If you're going to do some quoting, maybe you should quote everybody to get the full picture. (And I also believe that Reagan was only referring to private sector unions, which is a completely different beast than public sector unions, since you can't collectively bargain with the government anyways.)