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UNION SHARE DECLINE
Troubled Unions: Organized Labor Sees Share
of Work Force Drop Despite Pay Gains
By Alfred L. Malabre
The Wall Street Journal (Friday, June 25, 1971)
Less of the labor force is unionized in the U.S. Than
in most industrial countries. The percentage has been shrinking. And
there is reason to believe that the shrinkage will continue.
Over the long run, such facts suggest that pay boosts
won by organized labor may exert less direct impact on labor costs
throughout the economy than they do today. The record indicates that
unions, far from assuming an ever larger role in the U.S. economy, are
actually struggling to maintain their relative position. "Far too
much power has been attributed to unions by those looking for an easy
explanation to recent inflationary pressures," says Leo Troy, a
Rutgers University economist who studies union developments.
An economist at the federal Reserve Board in
Washington claims that "the facts simply don't support the charge
that unions have recently grown all-powerful and must somehow be
curbed." He adds "the roots of our inflation extend far beyond
union power--to fiscal and monetary policies, the Vietnam war and some
basic changes taking place in the structure of our economy."
There's no question, of course, that U.S. unions have
recently been winning huge pay packages, and that these well-publicized
packages--particularly in such industries as construction--have
encouraged workers generally to be more demanding. "Union increases
tend to set the pattern for everyone else," declares George P.
Hutchings, economist for C.I.T. Financial Corp. Mr. Hutchings, who
specializes in labor trends, adds: "In recent years, many unions
have discovered that they can demand, and get, really big pay
increases."
Charles E. Walker, Under Secretary of the Treasury,
voices a similar opinion. "Unions may be getting less powerful, in
terms of how much of the labor force they represent," the official
says. "But they may also be getting meaner."
Meaner or not, at first glance, statistics hardly
seem to back up claims that unions may be getting less powerful in the
U.S. In absolute terms, government figures show, nearly 20 million U.S.
workers, a record, belong to unions. This dwarfs the number of union
members in such non-Communist nations as the United Kingdom and West
Germany. If U.S. unionization is viewed in terms of the country's total
labor force, however, an entirely different picture emerges.
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Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
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The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—but her
carefully researched, deeply engaging,
and thoroughly readable book should
change that.—Publishers
Weekly |
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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ChickenBones Store
(Books, DVDs, Music)
update
16 February 2012
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