Now that I have a bit more time to answer this...
The Transport Workers Union and its supporters linked their labor woes to the civil rights struggle, an approach that people who study the labor movement say is being used more often as some unions see increasing minority membership. More than 70 percent of the TWU's 33,000 members are people of color, including its president.
Interesting; over here the Transport & General Workers Union used similer rhetoric during the Gate Gourmet dispute (which is kinda over now). A bit different o/c (these were mainly Indian [and mostly Sikh] women) but the parallels are certainly interesting.
Outside that sort of industry, the giant T&G is still very white though. Not to the same extent as other blue collar unions though. And until fairly recently it's leader was
from Jamaica.
The very fact that it's even occured to some Union bosses to try to reinvent their image is interesting enough in it's own right.
Hmm? There's an awful lot of other words and phrases unions can use to justify their actions that don't have anything to do with civil rights. And what's an associate professor anyway?
Quite a good line actually. Seems to have been said more for the sake of being said than anything else though.
Interesting. Quite amusing to see a socially liberal type like Bloomberg being accused of playing the race card. Hoisted by his own petard perhaps?
That sort of comparision is going too far IMO; and going so negative isn't a great idea anyway.
The union could do with Sharpton shutting up. Then again, so would *everyone*...
Typical spin-doctor blurb there...
I don't see how that's at all revelant...
True. Although the extent of it still isn't certain and is certainly less than fourty odd years ago.
Although to be honest it's always been that way... and I'm not really sure how very relavent that is for unions. You can't unionise the very bottom of society as the very bottom of society doesn't actually have a job...
Textiles are part of the service sector?
A more accurate summary might be "industries where there's a lot of room for relatively easy union expansion".
It would be a positive if the unions would make a thing of that, yes. Makes everyone involved more respectable in a way.
But U.S unions will have to do more than just reach out to minority groups if they want to expand up to the sort of levels of union density you'd expect in a labour market like the U.S's; although even beginning to take as small a step as this is probably significant.
At the same time it's very important for unions to not be associated with people like Sharpton or to be seen as part of some grand pinko-lefty-minorities *political* movement... fundamentally unions are economic creatures and shouldn't forget that in pursuit of a few more members.
