unions and business ethics

My article on "The

Legitimacy of Labor Unions," which originally appeared in The Hofstra Labor

and Employment Law Journal, is going to be translated into Chinese

for the Global Law Review, a quarterly law journal published by

the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. I’m excited

because an argument in favor of unions is especially important in a country

where the right to unionize is barely recognized.

Here’s a quote to make you angry. According to an article

in the New York Times, after a White House meeting on the Bush

economic plan, "Lizann Sonders, the chief investment strategist

at Charles Schwab & Company, said the tax cut is ‘the answer to the

economy, is the answer to the stock market and maybe most importantly

it’s the answer to bringing back trust and fairness and faith in the system.’"

So a representative of a profession that has squandered public trust has

the gall to say that "trust and fairness and faith" can be restored

by granting her industry a massive tax break that would necessitate deep

cuts in programs benefitting the poor and disadvantaged.