Big Labor is far ahead of the business interests in this country in the battle for the minds of the next generation. A labor journalist recently attended a workshop run by unionists for educators in New York, focused on teaching particular aspects of labor history (in this example the Triangle Fire in 1911). The idea of course is to condition young people to be sympathetic to unionization. It is apparent reading the comments to the post that these “union-education collaboratives” are spread across the country, and are fairly active. Most of us would tend to “admit” that at some point in our history, labor unions were good, and possibly even necessary. Adam Bitely, writing for Americans for Limited Government, takes issue with this train of thought in an article titled, “Were Labor Unions Ever Necessary?” He proposes that the even the typical conservative idea that “labor unions were necessary in society a hundred years ago, but they are no longer needed in today’s workplace” is a flawed argument. It would seem there is a need for business groups or “business-education cooperatives” to help teachers learn how to extol the virtues of capitalism and free markets.
