Reagan's war on labor began in the summer of 1981, when he fired 13,000 striking air traffic controllers and destroyed their union. As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted, that was "an unambiguous signal that employers need feel little or no obligation to their workers, and employers got that message loud and clear -- illegally firing workers who sought to unionize, replacing permanent employees who could collect benefits with temps who could not, shipping factories and jobs abroad." Reagan gave dedicated union foes direct control of the federal agencies that were designed originally to protect and further the rights and interests of workers and their unions. Most important was Reagan's appointment of three management representatives to the five-member National Labor Relations Board which oversees union representation elections and labor-management bargaining, They included NLRB Chairman Donald Dotson, who believed that "unionized labor relations have been the major contributors to the decline and failure of once-healthy industries" and have caused "destruction of individual freedom." Under Dotson, a House subcommittee found,the board abandoned its legal obligation to promote collective bargaining, in what amounted to "a betrayal of American workers." http://www.dickmeister.com/id89.html
Then explain this: <iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HsHXJr8tqP0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Could it possibly mean that the undisputed hero of the GOP (God's Own Party), their very touchstone of morality and integrity, spoke from both sides of his mouth? Please clarify.
One is a political stump speech made on Labor day BEFORE the Nov '80 election. The other is what he actually did once in office. Actions trump words.
Now there's a modus operandi that God's Own Party of righteousness and rectitude can sink its teeth into, eh?
One can only imagine how miserable and empty your life must be for you to obsess about us and our politics as you do. As a great philosopher said, "the past ain't what it used to be." Reagan would probably be disgusted by the cancer these unions have become, fed by the corrupt cycle of using taxpayers' money to buy politicians who promise ever increasing wages and benefits to privileged "public servants" on the backs of the taxpayers they're supposed to serve.
Really? Is is the unions that explain the growing income disparity between the rich and everyone else? And do unions also explain shrinking middle class income?
At least he's arguing with you, which was exactly what you wanted. Your life now has meaning, such as it is. You should be grateful, not an arrogant condescending putz.
Actually the confusion is yours. The title of your thread is: "What would Ronald Reagan have said about the goings on in Wisconsin?" So the disgraceful fleeing of the democraps, union thuggery, lying teachers and doctors, death threats, entitled "public servants" bleeding working class taxpayers dry, etc. are all "goings on in Wisconsin." Your charts are not (even though CBO's numbers no doubt include WI's data).