Dear Editor
Dear Editor Why Union Drives Fail Gus Tyler is the usual keen analyst in his review of Union Power and New York: Victor Gotbaum and District Council37, by Professors Jewel and Bernard Bellush...
...Yet tlu\( sort of vague though admittedly under.stundable fear would not by itself justify a violent reaction...
...Asa middle-class subway rider myself 1 know why: The system is dark, dirty and lull of fearsome people who give you (he impression I hat they would be happy (o kill for a dime—or less...
...No doubt the manner of the request may have transformed it into something more imperative...
...For a jury, the appropriateness of Goetz' actions ought to be the nub of the case...
...Chicago George Roth Clarification The account of border-crossing procedures in Norman Gelb's "Berlin Chronicle'' (NL, December 24, 1984) should have indicated more clearly that West Germans who intend to make one-day visits to Last Berlin do not have to secure visas before presenting themselves at the border...
...West Berliners taking the same trip must apply for visas at least two days before they leave the city...
...This was precisely the answer I received in the 1930s when I helped organize the Association of Unap-pointed Teachers, which took legal action to compel the New York Board of Education to fill staff vacancies, then deliberately being fobbed off to temporary employees only...
...Of course, the free riders benefited as well...
...Self-defense...
...New York City Charles Cogen Past President, A merican Federation of Teachers Crime and Punishment Walter Goodman may be right in claiming that "the question of whether the punishment [Bernhard] Goetz inflicted [on his four alleged assailants] was proportionate to the offense he suffered is likely to be of keener interest to philosophers of the law than to his peers" ("The Case of the IRT Five," NL, December 24, 1984...
...For example, Goodman tells us that "when Goetz drew his gun against the four after they accosted him, that counts as self-defense...
...Maybe, but according to some reports, he was accosted by only one of the four young men he shot, and only that one asked him for a $5 handout...
...Against what— kids running away from him...
...perhaps, too, all four of Goetz' victims approached him...
...The failure to give due recognition to this factor helps explain our perplexity at the failure of union drives...
...Together with academics generally, Tyler also underplays two important problems in organizing the unorganized...
...And self-interest, unfortunately, does not always serve the common good...
...But should this be so, it i.s surely an outrage, especially if Goodman is referring to a jury of Goetz' peers...
...New York City Bob Lazarus Muddy Concepts Nathan Glick should make up his mind...
...But only a few paragraphs onward he criticizes Coser's "Germanic intellectual penchant for abstract and linguistically muddy concepts as somehow more profound than those accessible to the uninitiated...
...However, these possibilities merely show that the true extent of the threat confronting Goetz and the suitability of his reaction to it are essential...
...To sum up, (/"Goetz was asked (rather than harassed) for $5 by one young man and then blasted all four—two of them in the back—these considerations should be of great interest to a jury of Goetz' peers...
...If that is so, why has there been no such impulse for many years, despite the overriding need...
...Dear Editor Why Union Drives Fail Gus Tyler is the usual keen analyst in his review of Union Power and New York: Victor Gotbaum and District Council37, by Professors Jewel and Bernard Bellush ("Labor's Past as Present," NL, December 24, 1984...
...Second, there is the selfishness of those who think, "If the union gets benefits for its members, I'll get all of them too, even if I don't join...
...First, there is the individualism that proclaims—and I myself heard the refrain countless times as president of the United Federation of Teachers and later of the American Federation of Teachers, its parent body—"I don't believe in joining organizations...
...Goetz, of course, had more concrete reasons to be fearful...
...Nonetheless, the matter of his mayhem matching the threat to him remains paramount in any attempt to judge the legality of his behavior...
...So it would appear that the work is suitable for initiated nonspecialists—surely a small category indeed...
...He says, for example, that the "big history lesson" of the Bellushes' book is "the innate, instinctive impulse of the multitudes to act in common if they perceive a common cause...
...They should also be of great interest to everyone else, including Walter Goodman...
...If he really did shoot two of the men in the back—a detail that has been challenged, like virtually everything else in the case—this would suggest that he had repelled the threat before he pulled the trigger...
...Moreover, it may not be irrelevant that in form, at least, the fellow made a "request" (Goodman's word) for the money, not a demand...
...Besides, Goetz may have drawn his gun in self-defense, but he fired it as well...
...Reviewing Refugee Scholars in A merica: Their Impact and Their Experiences ("Europeans Bearing Gifts," NL, January 14-28), he first tells us that Lewis Coser's book "could well serve the nonspecialist as a reliable (though selective and personalized) introduction to contemporary social thought...
...After all, almost any middle-class person is likely to feel somewhat threatened these days during almost any New York subway ride...
...We wen the lawsuit through the contributions of a small minority of those who had passed the necessary exams and were therefore eligible for the permanent positions...
...Nonetheless, I wish Tyler had carried his analysis a bit further along...
...Why should I pay dues...
...Adam Smith was right: Man acts in his own self-interest, as he himself perceives it...
Vol. 68 • February 1985 • No. 2
