NET-workers

Interesting article in the NYTimes about the closing of a United Airlines aircraft maintenance center in Indianapolis. It's a classic tale of union trying to assert its power and employer choosing outsourcing over negotiating with the union. The article isn't especially flattering of the union, but it strikes me that the union didn't really have any other choice. The "global economy" basically undermined any chance that the workers had of standing up to their employer. Some people might read the article and say that the workers shouldn't have been so "militant" or that they asked for too much, but what other options did they really have? I like this quote from the article in particular:

Saying that the country should solve the skills shortage through education and training became part of nearly every politician's stump speech, an innocuous way to address the politics of unemployment without strengthening either the bargaining leverage of workers or the federal government's role in bolstering labor markets.

All in all, quite a sad story for these workers.