OT
Bob,
Actually, I think you're describing a world that is much more like the East Bloc than I am. Workers with no right to organize, no right to good-faith collective bargaining, no right to define and legally pursue their interests as workers, no right to define the composition of their workplace--. Since when is it Communistic to define your interests and use the tools of the marketplace to pursue those interests? Many would say that this stands at the very heart of our (yes, mine too!) capitalist way of life. Capitalism invites us all to negotiate and compete in the marketplace. This is precisely what the ILWU and the PMA are doing.
The slowdown was definitely not in the best interests of the PMA. But between the interests of the ILWU and the PMA, one would expect the ILWU to pursue the interests of the ILWU, and that's what they're doing. I have yet to see the PMA make any heroic gestures in the interests of the ILWU. From them, what I've seen is a lockout that has served the interests of the PMA but has also, in doing so, put the global economy on much more precarious footing than it was before the lockout.
You might say: but the PMA was protecting its own self interest. That's right. So we have the ILWU pursuing its self-interest, and the PMA pursuing its self-interest . . . and what's getting lost in the middle right now is the national interest. So who's responsible for the national interest? The ILWU? The PMA? Both? Neither?
I just can't understand why you think it's okay for the PMA to pursue its self-interest, but wrong for the ILWU to pursue its self-interest -- that is, why the ILWU has obligations to the national interest, but the PMA does not. Why should there be a double-standard like this?
AI
