BCT Editorial – 9/20/04

This page was last updated on September 20, 2004.

Work ethic; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 20, 2004.

The reason for this editorial is a statement Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) made regarding the latest US Airways trip into bankruptcy. Santorum said, “What we are seeing is some of the worst of the old Pennsylvania.” As acknowledged in the editorial, Sen. Santorum was taking a shot at labor union management when he said “worst of the old Pennsylvania.”

In fairness, labor union management was not the only problem at US Airways. Face it, company management made some poor business decisions; some poor decisions were labor related and others were not. In the end, company management must accept responsibility for the failure regardless of the role of union management.

Rather than leave it at that, the editorial equated a swipe at labor union management with a swipe at the worker. Incredibly, the editorial turned a shot at labor union management into “contempt for the hard-working men and women who built this commonwealth” and disparagement of “the professionalism of the men and women at US Airways.”

In many cases, labor union management no more represents the worker than did Karl Marx.

I got the feeling the Times and/or local labor union management was gunning for Sen. Santorum and looked at his comment as an opportunity, even to the point of distorting what he said.