T A B L E__T A L K What's it worth to make a buck? Tell your horror stories and read those of others in Table Talk   Search for business, personal finance and more at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author     R E C E N T L Y In defense of James Cramer By Ken Kurson The big mouth of stock market punditry deserves more praise than punishment (03/12/99) Big apple pickpocket By Heather Chaplin Big apple pickpocket: For newcomers, New York City is a glittering, thieving con artist that we only notice after we get home and realize we're broke (03/05/99) Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome ... the Grateful Capitalists! By Larry Kanter Taking their cue from counterculture success stories like the Grateful Dead, radical marketers are building brand loyalty from the ground up (02/26/99) Epidemic of extravagance By Heather Chaplin Economist Robert H. Frank has written a painstakingly researched new book offering a cure to our destructive love of luxury, but will anybody listen? (02/19/98) Van Gogh Inc. By Larry Kanter You've seen the paintings. Now buy the lunch box (02/12/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Reluctant Capitalist archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Columnists		[ T H E_.R E L U C T A N T_.C A P I T A L I S T ] Singing the union blues WHY DO AMERICANS DISTRUST ORGANIZED LABOR MORE THAN THE FAT CATS OF WALL STREET? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY HEATHER CHAPLIN | Perhaps I'm just perverse, but as the Dow flirts with the 10,000 mark and the country continues its unabashed stock market obsession, I find my mind wandering. While the rest of the money-obsessed are toasting the smashing of another Wall Street barrier, I'm wondering what this means for organized labor. Confession: I grow misty eyed watching any movie that contains a group of people coming together and throwing off their bonds of oppression. I have to rent these movies alone so I can sit in the dark and blow my nose and weep over the beauty of people working to better their lives. It's a fault, I know, probably the result of too much Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie as a child, but what can I do about it now? This debilitating weakness has already hardened into a full-blown dedication to unionization. The mystery for me has always been why Americans aren't more dedicated to organized labor, why they aren't more interested in the power of solidarity between working people. You may roll your eyes, but "all for one and one for all," and "an injury to one is an injury to all," are intensely practical expressions when you examine the principles behind them. Soldiers understand the concept, gang members do, even Europeans. How come to Americans, they just seem corny, naive, distasteful even? Is it because "working people" implies something sweaty from which most Americans want to be disassociated? Is it the result of a snow job by corporate interests, convincing us that joining a union means a loss of freedom? Is solidarity simply passé? Organized labor has certainly done its share in turning people off. Mob connections, for example, are never good for PR, unless you're in the mob, which most American aren't. Neither is small-scale corruption. Yes, like any movement, organized labor has its problems. In addition, it failed to maintain organizing efforts after reaching its peak membership years in the 1950s, and in the 1970s and 1980s, it let important links with community and other social groups disintegrate. Many people don't know it ever had them: that, for example, the 1963 March on Washington, when Martin Luther King Jr. made his "I Have a Dream" speech, was cosponsored by the United Auto Workers. It was called the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." N E X T+P A G E | Encouraging poll numbers for the labor movement