Originally Posted by
jungle
The facts clearly do not support your argument. It is sad that you want to pretend they do.
I give you some credit for recognizing that fact.
No matter how much you talk, you can't hide the facts of our position.
If private sector unions had shown any growth at all in the last sixty years, I would be forced to agree with you. But they have not, under any political alignment and you cannot admit the fact.
Why try to hide the facts?
Please just put up a chart of private sector union growth over the last sixty years, this should not be much of a challenge to someone with your sense of history.
Please just show us the facts sir.
We are waiting.
My argument is that one party is labor friendly, and has produced legislation beneficial to the working man. The other party is not labor friendly, and has produced legislation & policy to weaken organized labor, and policies that benefit corporate interests much more so than the average working man.
Furthermore, my argument is the R's, by & large, are a negative force in our professional pilot occupation & ALPA members at large. The evidence here is overwhelming. However, ALPA PAC lobbys both sides of the aisle (as do many entities, both labor & business) to support our initiatives. It's always been about the results & not purely the idealogy of the influence.
If your argument is that private unions have declined- there is no argument- they have. I listed many documented factors, the Taft Hartly Act in 1947 started it, as it enabled states to enact right to work, prohibited closed union shops, and gave the government power to impose legaly binding injunctions in the case of a striking workers. Would unions still have declined without this act, probably so due to all the other factors, but it would have taken longer, and been more gradual. The act is what opened up many of the other factors.- Thus the impact of politics & legislation
In areas of economics, there are few absolutes, but there are heavy contributors, and consistent trends. In any industry that is regulated by the government, politics absolutely matters, and that is my point.
We are in one of the most heavily federal regulated industries, and politics matter for us (pilots ALPA). To state that it doesn't is pure folley, and shows an absolute disregard of history, or ignorance of the history of how politics has impacted (& will continue to) our profession.