Which Side Are You On?

Based on his experiences as a Chicago labor lawyer, Geoghegan contends persuasively that post-industrial Reaganomics have caused a widening rift between the working and professional middle classes. In related episodes, he demonstrates how the combined effects of steel mill closings, leveraged buyouts and Third World competitive labor have contributed to the decline of American organized labor. Even more tragic for the workers is their betrayal by international unions which, he asserts, are run by high-powered lawyers engaged in incessant arbitration; in cahoots with the Labor Department and, in some cases, with the mob--e.g., the Teamsters--labor lawyers are accused here of conspiracy to deprive the rank and file of the rights to organize, vote and air grievances freely. Moreover, Geoghegan declares, government regulations (the Taft-Hartley act, etc.) and a dilatory National Labor Relations Board have further weakened unionism, reducing it to the status of an ineffectual counterculture. (Aug.)