<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HsHXJr8tqP0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> I guess he understood that unions have been the backbone of the middle class, and that the middle class has given First World countries their stability and prosperity, because the engine of an economy is its middle class.
Nahhh, he would have said this....... <object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ixNPplo-SU?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6ixNPplo-SU?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></object> Jesus told me so in my sleep last night.
This is what he thought of unions: Reagan fires 11,000 striking air traffic controllers Aug. 5, 1981 On this day in 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers who ignored his order to return to work. The sweeping mass firing of federal employees slowed commercial air travel, but it did not cripple the system as the strikers had forecast. Two days earlier, nearly 13,000 controllers walked out after talks with the Federal Aviation Administration collapsed. As a result, some 7,000 flights across the country were canceled on that day at the peak of the summer travel season. Robert Poli, president of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, sought an across-the-board annual wage increase of $10,000 for the controllers, whose pay ranged from $20,462 to $49,229 per year. He also sought a reduction of their five-day, 40-hour workweek to a four-day, 32-hour workweek. The FAA made a $40 million counteroffer, far short of the $770 million package that the union sought. Reagan branded the strike illegal. He threatened to fire any controller who failed to return to work within 48 hours. Federal judges levied fines of $1 million per day against the union. In 1955, Congress made such strikes punishable by fines or a one-year jail term â a law the Supreme Court upheld in 1971. To the chagrin of the strikers, the FAAâs contingency plans worked. Some 3,000 supervisors joined 2,000 nonstriking controllers and 900 military controllers in manning airport towers. Before long, about 80 percent of flights were operating normally. Air freight remained virtually unaffected. In carrying out his threat, Reagan also imposed a lifetime ban on rehiring the strikers. In October 1981, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified PATCO.
Apple meet orange. We are talking about the right to collective bargaining. Reagan arguably had no qualm with this right. His firing of striking air traffic controllers was predicated on the following: "...It was in recognition of this that the Congress passed a law forbidding strikes by government employees against the public safety..." http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan's_ultimatum_to_striking_air_traffic_controllers Whose collective bargaining rights has Reagan ever taken away during his eight years in office? Isn't Reagan the Right Wing's golden boy to whom every Rightster wishes to liken himself or herself? And, if so, why the obvious disparity now? Context is everything. And you're fresh out.
But the thread itself would be visible to those who have me on ignore if someone else posted on it. Further, the thread title speaks for itself, and yet there is hardly any response despite reference to their hero. And so, your contribution to this thread is about on par with the value you add elsewhere. Oh, and thanks for your invaluable input on the subject matter.
I stand corrected. Interesting, however, that my other threads have gotten rather more traction. So have that many people really placed me on ignore so very coincidentally just as I created this thread? Or, rather, are the Righsters hiding in their FOXholes?