Union Strike at Caterpillar

Re “Cat on Strike: The Waning Power of Unions,” series, May 14-18:

Your thoughtful and compelling articles about the Caterpillar strike miss a very important point. Unions are dying a slow death in this country because management has succeeded in forcing labor into making concessions to maintain a company’s global competitiveness. Must American workers be hammered to the same level of wage slavery that prevails in Malaysia, China, Mexico and Korea to protect the profits of companies like Caterpillar?

The emerging global marketplace encourages capital investment to seek the highest rates of return. Do American consumers really benefit from the “outsourcing” of work to underpaid workers halfway around the world? Clearly not, when such practices result in the disappearance of decent-paying jobs.

The story about the economic and moral dilemma faced by workers like Diane Roberts personalizes the difficult choices that workers face in the global marketplace. Her choices and our choices--both as workers and consumers--must reflect a new global perspective. Working people in America need to realize that regardless of whether they are machinists, janitors, computer programmers, textile workers or newspaper reporters they have much more in common with people doing a similar job for less money in some country halfway around the world.

Underpaid working people speaking some other language in a foreign land are not the real foes of American workers. Overpaid CEOs, Wall Street merger and acquisition specialists and other “investors” driven only by maximizing short-term profit are the true adversaries.

DEAN GOODMAN

Venice

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After reading the series of articles on the Caterpillar strike, I am astonished to read that the union workers considered themselves irreplaceable, but having firsthand knowledge of labor leaders’ lack of acumen, I shouldn’t be.

American women during World War II were totally untrained and unskilled initially, but proved that any work force, anywhere, can produce anything on an assembly line if the workers are sufficiently motivated.

If they were able to produce the best military aircraft in the world, anything is possible for workers to produce; again the key is motivation.

It is incomprehensible that the union bosses were unaware of that.

G. C. MONTOYA

Los Angeles

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Thank you for the excellent five-part series on the strike at Caterpillar by Barry Bearak. This is one of the best pieces of journalism I have ever read. It helps people understand what is happening in the world around them by using an example which illustrates the bigger picture. I applaud the commitment and resources which went into this substantial effort. Keep up the good work.

KAREN HELLER MASON

Los Angeles

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Your Column One headline which concluded that “Labor Slips” (May 14) is proven wrong by the story itself. Labor is fine! Unions have slipped.

DICK THIES

Long Beach