What a difference a few decades makes. Ronald Reagan, the golden boy of the Republican party would be an outcast in the fair state of Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana, as well as some other places here in the United States.
Reagan himself had been president of the Screen Actors Guild which was a union. The Screen Actors Guild has connections to the AFL-CIO. He was a strong supporter of Poland’s Solidarity Movement and had great respect for its leader, Lech Walesa.
Reagan castigated the Polish government for outlawing Solidarity.
Reagan stated:
“By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights—the right to belong to a free trade union.”
Many have argued that Walesa’s leadership in Poland was the beginning of the end of communism. Just what is it that these elected officials fear?
They fear the power of numbers. Had those in Wisconsin only been a few hundred dissonants, they would have been arrested and jailed. That is hard to do with thousands.
Perhaps those opposing the rights of public employees to form unions and to engage in collective bargaining need to reexamine their motives. Maybe they had better put their American flags away while they are lifting their legs on Miss Liberty’s golden door.
Reagan’s ” Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost!” will be just a lone echo in the wind if someone doesn’t get rid of these union busters elected to office.
