Chicago columnist on why unions are needed

Neil Steinberg, left, of the Chicago Sun-Times and a Newspaper Guild member decided last week in the wake of the GM workers strike "that union solidarity demands something be said." From his 9/26 column:

Workers in the Third World are paid less for a reason. They are less educated, less efficient, and work under harsher conditions, churning out pollution we would never tolerate here. Their standards can be woefully inadequate, as U.S. toymakers discovered to their sorrow.

They don't have unions. We do. Years of Republican lobbying have given unions a bad name by focusing on all-too-real corruption. But we wouldn't have the standard of living that's imperiled now without them.

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