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against union membership for years.
A lot of the general union-busting began with Raygun, but the media had for years before that portrayed unions -- especially striking unions -- as the enemy. Everything from striking garbage truck drivers and parking garage workers in NYC in 1967 to air traffic controllers and baseball players in 1981: It was always the fault of those "greedy" unions.
But then you had the results of strikes that left new union members out in the cold: When the strikes against the grocery chains were settled just a few years ago, the new contracts preserved the wages of existing union members but allowed the chains to hire new workers at Wal-Mart wages. This left little incentive to join the union and thus further diluted the power of the unions.
As the US economy has shifted from manufacturing to service (including retail sales, fast food, financial services, etc.), the impact and influence of unions has waned. White- and pink-collar jobs were historically not unionized, and there was a "managerial," anti-union mindset established in those areas, along the lines of "personal responsibility," which is a right wing, anti-union mantra.
It's not just that workers don't *want* to join unions: they've been propagandized not to want to join the, but also they often don't have effective unions to join and/or the company they work for will retaliate if they try to join a union.
Corporations have the resources to do just about anything they want to do to avoid having their workers unionized. They can pack up and move an operation, either to another town or state, or to another country. Even the possibility of losing jobs can be enough of a threat to keep workers from unionizing, especially since have seen so many "good" jobs go overseas over the past couple of decades. If the choice is between a crappy, non-union, subsistence wage and no wage at all, which do you think most people will choose? Unfortunatly, "good-paying union job" isn't one of the choices any more.
Tansy Gold
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