The Right Coast |
|
|
Thoughts from San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture
Right Coasters
Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Email Us Gail Heriot Saikrishna Prakash Michael Rappaport Maimon Schwarzschild Thomas Smith Christopher Wonnell Links Andrew Sullivan Atlantic Blog The Buck Stops Here Corporate Law Blog Crescat Sententia Crooked Timber Curmudgeonly Clerk Daniel Drezner En Banc EveTushnet.Com FreeSpace How Appealing Instapundit Law and Econ Blog Little Green Footballs Legal Theory Blog The Leiter Reports Marginal Revolution Overlawyered Pejmanesque ProfBainbridge.Com Punishment Theory Rasmusen Weblog SFA Politics & Relig Southern Appeal SpoonsExperience USS Clueless The Volokh Conspiracy The Yin Blog Archives The Bear Flag League Aaron's Rantblog (LA) Absinthe & Cookies Accidental Jedi (Fres) Angry Clam (LA) Baldilocks BlogoSFERICS (Expat) BoifromTroy (LA) CalBlog (Los Angeles) California Republic Citizen Smash(SD) Cobb (Los Angeles) Daily Pundit (SF) Dale Franks e-Claire(Northern CA) Fresh Potatoes(Orang) Infinite Monkeys The Interocitor (LA) The Irish Lass (Sacra) Left Coast Conserv. Lex Communis (Fres) Master of None (LA) Miller's Time (Sac) Molly's Musings (SD) Mulatto Boy (LA) Howard Owens (Vent) Pathetic Earthlings) Patio Pundit Patterico's Pontifications(LA) PrestoPundit (Orange) QandO Right on the Left Beach Shark Blog (Expat) Slings and Arrows (SD) So. Cal Law Blog (LA) Tone Cluster Window Manager Xrlq (Orange) 
|
July 26, 2005
Division of Labor By Gail Heriot It is interesting to compare the San Diego Union Tribune and the New York Times in their coverage of yesterday’s split in the AFL-CIO. The Union-Tribune emphasized that the dissident unions–the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union–were fed up with the AFL-CIO ‘s extravagant spending on political campaigns and causes and wanted to increase efforts at organizing non-union employees. It story read: "At the core of the dispute is the rejected demand by the two breakaway unions and several allies that the federation shift resources from political action and devote them instead to organizing nonunion sectors of the economy. "Speaking for 1.4 million Teamsters, Hoffa declared, ‘We must have more union members in order to change the political climate that is undermining workers' rights in this country. The AFL-CIO has chosen the opposite approach. . . . Their idea is to keep throwing money at politicians.’" I find this a thoroughly believable story. I’ve long been surprised at how much money and effort unions put into backing Democratic candidates and left-of-center political causes that their own members often oppose. In contrast, the New York Times–with its headline, "Ambitions are Fueling Union Split"-- attributed the split mainly to a clash of egos. "[A]s much as anything," the Times explains, "the schism reflects the conflicting ambitions of two titans of labor, John J Sweeney, the president of the AFL-CIO, and his onetime protégé, Andrew L. Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union, until now the largest union in the labor federation." Both stories can be true, of course. But the way the New York Times reports it, the reader will be inclined to fault Stern and Hoffa destroying a once-great institution simply to further their individual ambitions. The reader of the Union Tribune story, on the other hand, will be inclined to sympathize with dissidents. |