Correspondence
Correspondence The reviewer sins Chicago, 111. To the Editors: Long, long ago I gave up expecting either accuracy or fairness for me or my work in the pages of Commonweal. Nonetheless, Maurice...
...It is a monument to Professor Berube's incompetence that he does not even seem to be aware of Lieberson's book, and it is a monument to the Commonweal's ongoing failure as a serious intellectual journal that it will commission reviews of shallow, inept, and misleading books such as those by Sowell and Stephen Steinberg, and ignore Stanley Lieberson...
...First of all, the "ethnic miracle" of which I wrote has nothing to do with the argument that "certain ethnic groups were able to succeed because of superior cultural values...
...3)Unions do not wish to organize the vast majority of workers...
...It is this discrepancy, between "poor-mouthing" and the comfortable middle-class existence many union workers actually enjoy, that I find distasteful...
...Father Greeley is part of die problem...
...It is the non-union, non-professional worker who lacks the market power to pass on the increased prices...
...His linking of my name with that of the turncoat, Michael Novak, is gratuitous and false...
...VINCENT J. LATTANZIO...
...closer to Moynihan than it does to Ver-non Jordan...
...Moreover, I do not think-as Thomas So well apparently does think-that blacks are just like any other "ethnic group.'' Indeed, my friend and colleague from the University of Arizona, Stanley Lieberson, in his monumental and ingenious work, A Piece of the Pie, demonstrates, to my mind conclusively, what is the similarity and what is the difference between the blacks and the ethnic immigrants of the early twentieth century...
...5) Suggestions: As for the unions, I suggest they go back to their roots and redefine the reasons for their existence...
...Perhaps he may do more good in his new role as a hack novelist than he has as a social scientist...
...These groups of workers truly share the economic conditions of first American union workers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries...
...MAURICE R. BERUBE Union blues Lancaster, Pa...
...The implication is why can't others do the same...
...Professor Berube thus attributes to me a definition of the ethnic miracle as exactly the opposite of which I wrote...
...The established unions, however, have long since freed themselves of the economic hardships of the past, but persist in portraying themselves as powerless underdogs when in reality the unionized worker is often one of the decreasing minority who can afford single family housing or a new car (or two...
...The unions, however, prefer to maintain their higher wages come hell or Honda...
...Today the price of both is out of reach...
...Twenty years ago such a worker could afford a small house and a low-priced new car...
...Because, what good is it to make $15 an hour if everybody else makes $15 an hour...
...Finally, I must say that I have long been perturbed by Father Greeley's apologist attitudinal surveys that purport to show that white ethnics are in favor of integration...
...But then what else is new...
...11 issue of Commonweal perfectly illustrate my resubscription dilemma...
...Greeley's ranting and raving against radicals, militant feminists, and black leaders (in Ethnicity in the United States among other places) places him in my book...
...Kirkland's solution...
...Imagine how many new jobs would result if automobile workers would accept a more than reasonable $10 per hour instead of the current average of about $15...
...Big Business merely passes on the cost of high salaries to consumers...
...Who then is left holding the bag, who is at the end of this elaborate pyramid game...
...REV...
...Had Father Greeley read Peter Steinfels's The Neoconservatives he may have learned that neoconservatives are found in both parties, as New York's Democratic Senator Daniel Moynihan shows...
...Why not base hourly rate with a profit-sharing addition so that workers would share the profits of good times, and the company could maintain employment during bad times...
...I found the editorial concerning ABC-TV's attempt to report the subtleties of monasti-cism to be filled with the type of insight and erudition that more than justify the subscription price- The editorial oh organized labor, however, reflected the blind dogmatism and disregard for facts that characterize Commonweal's views of unionism...
...There are Democrats and there are Democrats...
...4)I am not anti-union...
...This policy inhibits job market expansion and thus is hardest on the economically disadvantaged whom union leaders claim to champion...
...In fact, since union salary-increases are based on the CPI (an index that overemphasizes the cost of single family housing and financing), many union workers are over-compensated for inflation...
...As the black rights activists said in the late sixties, if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem...
...If organized labor is to be vital and progressive, it must open the door of economic power to non-union laborers, secretaries, clerical workers and low-level management...
...Quite the contrary, the "ethnic miracle" is that those who were supposed to have inferior cultural values-the Poles and the Italians-have succeeded (and for the inferiority of their values, see the work of such giants of the Chicago School as W. I. Thomas, Florian Znaniecki, and Robert E. Park...
...His denunciation of Michael Novak and Thomas Sowell is good to hear...
...Does that mean that I will now be reading Father Greeley in the pages of the more liberal New York Review of Books or Commonweal rather than where I have been reading him, in those twin organs of neoconservatism, The Public Interest and Commentary...
...I do, however, support the efforts of those attempting to unionize J.P...
...I am rather an Irish Catholic Democrat from Chicago and have been so since I was fourteen...
...The philosophical foundation of their movement cannot continue to be the pursuit of those ends which provide the greatest economic benefit to current membership without regard for the rest of society...
...Perhaps I am simply tired of hearing the televised woes of $45,000-per-year air traffic controllers...
...In fact, Big Business and Big Labor are the opposite sides of the same coin...
...Moreover, whatever a "neoconservative" is, I am not a neoconservative, as Professor Berube argues in his second paragraph...
...Nonetheless, Maurice Be-rube's distortion in the first two paragraphs of his review, "Two These on Ethnicity," were so false, so ignorant and so malicious that I have no choice but to respond to die [Aug...
...Please cancel my subscription...
...VINCENT J. LATTANZIO subscription...
...You will probably doubt the truth of this statement more than the previous three...
...Here in the South Democrats are, by and large, indistinguishable from conservative Republicans...
...The truth of this statement was shown by the weak support the rank and file gave to the 1978 Congressional attempt to simplify the organizing process...
...He neglects to tell us that his own unions are largely responsible for the current economic position of the non-unionized worker...
...I am not a "former liberal," much less a "former leftist...
...Those consumers who are unionized or of the professional class are able to demand more for themselves in order to keep abreast with higher prices...
...Hard work, saving, sacrifice,' Greeley writes, "such is the tentative explanation of the 'ethnic miracle...
...Inevitably, if given the choice between more jobs or higher pay, the unions will choose higher pay...
...Although he says that it doesn't follow that today government aid may not be necessary, his heart isn't in it...
...To the Editors: The editorials in the Sept...
...Imagine the reactions of union workers and leaders to the interest rates that would result if every bank teller received $15 an hour, or to insurance premiums if every secretary were likewise unionized...
...2) Those who suffer most from or-ganized labor's ever-increasing demands are non-union workers...
...ANDREW M. GREELEY The author replies: Virginia Beach, Va...
...The unions have their place in the sun and are ready and able to cast down upon those of us who dare question that sacred place the full fury of God, the churches, and Commonweal...
...This statement is supported by the fact that only 20 percent of the American work force is unionized...
...The historical evidence such as the Poles resisting housing integration in Chicago, the Irish fighting school busing in Roxbury, and the Jews opposing a low-income project for blacks in Forest Hills often suggests otherwise...
...More welfare for the working poor...
...If the unions continue to jealously refuse to share their economic power, then they will die a well-deserved death...
...That success was without benefit, he notes, of "quotas, no affirmative action, no elaborate system of social service, and heaven knows, no ethnic militancy...
...As for Commonweal, I suggest the editors apply the same common sense and respect for the facts to labor unions as they have to their perception of the Soviet Union...
...As for his views on ethnicity, Greeley makes quite clear in his article, "The Ethnic Miracle," in The Public Interest, that cultural values are dominant...
...It is the market power of Big Business that enables Big Labor to demand and receive extravagantly high compensation...
...In light of the above, should I, a $10,000-per-year bank teller with a wife, one child and another on the way, pay $22 per year for a publication that so 'strongly supports economic structures that threaten my financial well-being...
...Stevens and the California farmworkers...
...Why did immigrant groups at the turn of the century succeed...
...Allow me to outline my view of organized labor: 1) Unions represent a powerful (although perhaps not as powerful as in the past) well-paid elite that is primarily concerned with the desires of its own membership...
...I am delighted to learn that Father Greeley may be experiencing a change of heart...
Vol. 108 • November 1981 • No. 20
