re: #97 palomino

You’re focusing on one tree while missing the rest of the forest. Reagan may have been in an intractably shitty situation wrt PATCO, excusing what otherwise looked like a reckless and hasty decision.

But regarding the existence and viability of unions in general, Reagan actually did quite a lot of damage. He was no friend of unions. Like his party, he generally pursued and supported policies that weakened most unions across the nation. He was a “right to work” guy. Meaning the guy who was once president of a union (SAG in his “acting” days) thought they were great for people like himself. But for others, not so much.

The thing is that the author of the article I was responding to hung his entire case for Reagan being anti-union on the PATCO strike:

8. His attack on Unions and the Middle Class -

The Republican war on unions and the middle class has been heating up in states like Wisconsin and Ohio, but it has been going on for a long time. Unions are formed to give a united voice to the workers in an attempt to create fairness between the corporations and their employees. On August 3rd, 1981, PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) went on strike in an effort to get better pay and safer working conditions. Two days later, taking the side of business, Ronald Reagan fired 11,345 workers for not returning to work.

(Italics in original.)

My reply was directed at the example the article gave, not at other Reagan Administration conduct the article did not cite. As it was my answer was long and ‘wordy’ by necessity. To have increased its length to bring up other labor issues of the Reagan Administration would have required a good deal of additional research and an even longer post.