Thanks for the considered post, john f. weldon. Sometimes we react to old insults instead of the issue at hand - it's human.

katlaughing, I'm also strongly pro-union, and there's a huge overlap, IMO. I had the interesting experience in the late seventies of working alongside some very young women who felt women's rights were pretty much a done deal, heartening in some ways, because they were able to believe they could do anything they wanted, a bit annoying on the other hand because they hadn't a clue how long and hard a road it had been to give them that.

Then there was a crisis at the workplace, salaries (already quite low) were to be cut by one-third and benefits (such as they were) eliminated. We were advised that joining a union would freeze the process until a contract could be worked out. That's when these young women discovered that almost no large union would take on a small group of low-paid women. Talk about swiftly rising consciousness!

In the end we found a willing union, and things proceeded fairly smoothly - except for the glitch halfway through when nothing could be done for a week because the all female clerical staff of the union had locked their bosses out of the offices because of unfair treatment and inequal salaries. Our Rep was very sheepish about it all.

(Sorry, this is rather off topic.)