In The Fire Next Time (Vintage International, New York, 1993(1962), p. 88), James Baldwin writes: People are not, for example, terribly anxious to be equal…but they love the idea of being superior. And this human truth has an especially grinding force here [in America], where identity is almost impossible to achieve and people are perpetually attemptingContinue reading “James Baldwin On The Non-Existence Of The American Worker”
Tag Archives: labor relations
Step This Way For The Deunionized American Workplace
American unions look headed for another legal beating in the US Supreme Court. Pretty soon, we’ll be able to drop all pretense and just advocate beatings until the morale–of American workers–improves. The Supreme Court is about to hand their overseers a slightly thicker, more knotted, whip. Ten Californian teachers have sued their union–on First AmendmentContinue reading “Step This Way For The Deunionized American Workplace”
The ‘Adversarial’ Nature of Unions
One of the strangest objections to the presence of unions in the workplace is that unions make the workplace adversarial, that they introduce conflict into the relationship between the worker and the manager (or between the two classes), that rather than letting workers and management concentrate on maximizing output (or throughput) and enterprise profit, whichContinue reading “The ‘Adversarial’ Nature of Unions”
Book Release Announcement: Brave New Pitch: The Evolution of Modern Cricket
As some readers of this blog might be aware, I write on cricket (the sport, not the animal), at my blog The Pitch, on ESPN-Cricinfo. My first book on cricket, Brave New Pitch: The Evolution of Modern Cricket has just been released by HarperCollins. The blurb for it says: Cricket as we know it mayContinue reading “Book Release Announcement: Brave New Pitch: The Evolution of Modern Cricket”
Labor Relations in Low Earth Orbit: The Skylab Strike
Three weeks ago, the world celebrated the twenty-eighth anniversary of the end of the manned portion of the Skylab mission. Well, not really. Enthusiasts of manned space exploration certainly did; others had to be reminded. Students of the history of science can edify us about the scientific value of the three Skylab missions (meant toContinue reading “Labor Relations in Low Earth Orbit: The Skylab Strike”
Samir Chopra 