Union Roundup: Anymore, only athletes and people getting residuals can *afford* to strike

[villager]

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Last column, I said I’d be writing about how, nearly a quarter century after Ronald Reagan succeeded in destroying the air traffic controllers union when they went on strike, only athletes and writers (or actors, or directors, if they ever chose to) can “afford” to walk out for the kind of protracted period that might produce results.

Most American workers correctly perceive that baseball players or TV staff writers are not like them – they earn, on average, a hell of a lot more (when they’re working), and their health plans are generally far superior to the average citizen’s – and hence the mix of resentment and admiration that tend to greet walkouts in those industries (we can call professional sports an “industry” by now, yes?).

For you need to be either vastly overpaid, like athletes (whether this applies to the recent NHL season-long shutdown, I’m not sure), or have residuals – a way for money to come in during the stoppage – in order to sustain a strike in the first place.

But the corporate entities that can wait out such strikes are larger, too.

The fascination with the outcome has spread to most corners of the country, too, even above and beyond the question when new scripted episodes of television might start appearing on small screens. Again, this is because this strike becomes a stand-in for all those other deferred struggles between an elite ownership class, and the rest of us.

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http://btlnews.com/blog/archives/108