E.J. Dionne:When unions mattered, prosperity was shared

[cal04]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/05/AR2010090502814.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Watching the great civil rights march on television in August 1963, I couldn't help but notice that hundreds of people carried signs with a strange legend at the top: "UAW Says." UAW was saying "Segregation Disunites the United States," and many other things insisting on equality.

This "UAW" was a very odd word to my 11-year-old self, and I asked my dad who or what "U-awe," as I pronounced it, was. The letters, he explained, stood for United Auto Workers.

(snip)
All but forgotten is the fact that our nation's extraordinary prosperity from the end of World War II to the 1970s was in significant part the result of union contracts that, in words the right wing hated Barack Obama for saying in 2008, "spread the wealth around." A broad middle class with spending power to keep the economy moving created a virtuous cycle of low joblessness and high wages.

Between 1966 and 1970, as Gerald Seib pointed out last week in the Wall Street Journal, the United States enjoyed an astonishing 48 straight months in which the unemployment rate was at or below 4 percent. No, the unions didn't do all this by themselves. But they were important co-authors of a social contract that made our country fairer, richer and more productive.

[KakistocracyHater]

1. Middle Class Wealth Act of 2010

* & I recc'd it back to 0

[Dems2002]

2. Wow --

How can anyone 'unrec' something about the importance of the labor movement on a democratic forum? It doesn't even bash Obama for the Obamabots.

I am a first generation college graduate. My father worked for the Post Office and died at the age of 35. My mother and I had healthcare per his job (good healthcare, when it was Blue Cross/Blue Shield) until I graduated college. We received his pension, life insurance policy and were able to keep our house because of this.

About five years after he died my mother was informed of some miscalculation of his benefits and that she was going to receive a check. She expected it to be a couple thousand, and it turned into $15,000, which she used to re stucco our house.

I can't imagine what our life would have been like if he had died working at a non-union job with crappy benefits. We would have survived, but I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to attend Northwestern or 'move up.'

I love unions and just wish more people would understand their value.

[whathehell]

4. Your story is essentially my story, my sister's story, Thom Hartmann's story and

Michael Moore' story and millions of others...I don't know WHY it's not shouted out more!

Thanks.

[Daphne08]

6. +10000

[Stevepol]

3. K&R!!

[xchrom]

5. recommend