NYT: In America, Labor Has an Unusually Long Fuse

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/weekinreview/05greenhouse.html?ref=global-home


Guillaume Horcajuelo/European Pressphoto Agency

Them French workers in Marseille protest the government’s economic policy.

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
Published: April 4, 2009

The workers and other protesters who gathered en masse at the Group of 20 summit meeting last week in London were continuing a time-honored European tradition of taking their grievances into the streets.

Two weeks earlier, more than a million workers in France demonstrated against layoffs and the government’s handling of the economic crisis, and in the last month alone, French workers took their bosses hostage four times in various labor disputes. When General Motors recently announced huge job cuts worldwide, 15,000 workers demonstrated at the company’s German headquarters.

But in the United States, where G.M. plans its biggest layoffs, union members have seemed passive in comparison. They may yell at the television news, but that’s about all. Unlike their European counterparts, American workers have largely stayed off the streets, even as unemployment soars and companies cut wages and benefits.

The country of Mother Jones, John L. Lewis and Walter Reuther certainly has had a rich and sometimes militant history of labor protest — from the Homestead Steel Works strike against Andrew Carnegie in 1892 to the auto workers’ sit-down strikes of the 1930s and the 67-day walkout by 400,000 G.M. workers in 1970.

But in recent decades, American workers have increasingly steered clear of such militancy, for reasons that range from fear of having their jobs shipped overseas to their self-image as full-fledged members of the middle class, with all its trappings and aspirations.

David Kennedy, a Stanford historian and author of “Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945,” says that America’s individualist streak is a major reason for this reluctance to take to the streets. Citing a 1940 study by the social psychologist Mirra Komarovsky, he said her interviews of the Depression-era unemployed found “the psychological reaction was to feel guilty and ashamed, that they had failed personally.”

FULL story at link.

[Horse with no Name]

1. With the convergence of the housing crisis and banking crisis

when more people lose their homes and their credit--I think things will change.
In other words, we are "almost there"...too many people live too carefully because they feel they have too much to lose.
Well that comfort zone is rapidly dissipating.

[Psephos]

2. I wonder how long a fuse the Boston Globe unionized workers will have

After the NYT finishes threatening them with closing the paper, and demanding large reductions in pay, benefits, and positions.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8b032328-222e-11de-8380-00144feabdc0.html

[dcsmart]

3. great post K & R americans need to hear this let's send this to the greatest

[dcsmart]

4. let's kick this to the greatest page