Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. From your video link, Reagan:  

    <

    p>I support

    “…basic right to form free trade unions and strike.”

    <

    p>FYI, Public unions aren’t free trade unions, and can’t legally strick.  Significant differences from the thing Reagan says he’s supporting.

    • I didn’t want to have to do this.

      <

      p>Governor Reagan signed the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act into law in 1968:

      <

      p>

      It is also the purpose of this chapter to promote the improvement of personnel management and employer-employee relations within the various public agencies in the State of California by providing a uniform basis for recognizing the right of public employees to join organizations of their own choice and be represented by those organizations in their employment relationships with public agencies.

      <

      p>http://politifact.com/truth-o-…

      <

      p>http://www.perb.ca.gov/laws/st…

      <

      p>(Note that I never stated that the clip was of Reagan promoting public-sector unions.)

      • Ok, so if your point is that Reagan’s action opened the door to public union, I’m not sure.  I guess the Brown act was instrumental.  So?

        <

        p>You link in a video and claim that that you never stated that the clip was of Reagan promoting public-sector unions. Ok, so what was the purpose of the video.

        <

        p>So, exactly what are you struggling to say?

        • Today’s GOP hates all unions, public and private sector.  The public sector ones happen to be front and center at the moment, but these things are cyclical.

          <

          p>So the point of the post, which I think is a fine one, is that, at various times, Ronald Reagan supported the right of both public- and private-sector workers to form unions and to bargain collectively.  That’s a far cry from what you’re hearing today.

          <

          p>Now, did he also fire the air traffic controllers?  Sure.  Doesn’t change the above at all, since what they did was illegal, and long-existing federal law gave Reagan the right to do what he did.

          • Ah, the point is that decisions made by Presidents are different at different times and affect things in ways that are ironic at times and here’s an unrelated video with someone famous in it.  Inscrutable.  Thanks for that.

            <

            p>

            • The point is that today’s conservatives hold up Ronald Reagan as not just “someone famous” but as the pinnacle of All That Is Right And Good, yet are thoroughly ignorant of what Reagan actually believed in. They think he stood for modern conservatism’s far right-wing philosophies, when in fact his views were much more pragmatic — and “pragmatism” is not something present in today’s Republican Party.

              <

              p>Seems pretty related and on-point to me.

  2. …that Reagan is the only POTUS to have been a member of a union.  He was president of the Screen Actors Guild.

    • esteemed body, he was a friendly witness to the House on Un-American Activities committee who, among other things, testified that communist infiltration was a serious danger to the film industry.

      <

      p>The result: many lives ruined for constitutionally legal activities. And the reconstructed Globe Theatre, which was spearheaded by blacklist actor/director Sam Wanamaker who had moved to England.

Archives