Excellent piece, I really enjoyed it. I will say that the tone of the section about the transit strike was disturbing though: "Quill extracted $60 million in wage increases and benefits from the city. The settlement forced Lindsay to introduce new taxes to meet its costs." Haven't we moved beyond the "evil unions forcing poor cities to pay them a living wage" attitude by now?
Hi, Paul. Thanks a lot for reading my piece and taking the time to comment. While I would say that every strike situation is a little different, my choice of the word 'extracted' here was meant to denote that the benefits and wage increase won by the union were not easily gained nor readily given. It's not meant as any sort of judgement as to the settlements themselves.
Thanks for the clarification! I guess within the context of Lindsay's struggle to hold power, it felt framed to be sympathetic to him, which is fine -- he's a main character in the story. I'm just so wary of anti-union propaganda, and that era was rife with it. Your intention makes total sense, though. And thanks for the reply! :)
I have a copy of the Spanky and Our Gang entry in Universal Music's marvelous "20th Century Masters/Millennium Collection" CD series. "Give A Damn" is one of the tracks there, and it stands out like a raised middle finger compared to the rest. I thought, "whoever decided to write and record this thing had balls." So that obviously says a lot about the band, Dorough (who would bring some of this sociological edge to his work on ABC's groundbreaking television animation program "Schoolhouse Rock"), Scharf, the ad agency, and, ultimately, Mayor Lindsay for getting the ball rolling.
Excellent piece, I really enjoyed it. I will say that the tone of the section about the transit strike was disturbing though: "Quill extracted $60 million in wage increases and benefits from the city. The settlement forced Lindsay to introduce new taxes to meet its costs." Haven't we moved beyond the "evil unions forcing poor cities to pay them a living wage" attitude by now?
Hi, Paul. Thanks a lot for reading my piece and taking the time to comment. While I would say that every strike situation is a little different, my choice of the word 'extracted' here was meant to denote that the benefits and wage increase won by the union were not easily gained nor readily given. It's not meant as any sort of judgement as to the settlements themselves.
Thanks for the clarification! I guess within the context of Lindsay's struggle to hold power, it felt framed to be sympathetic to him, which is fine -- he's a main character in the story. I'm just so wary of anti-union propaganda, and that era was rife with it. Your intention makes total sense, though. And thanks for the reply! :)
I have a copy of the Spanky and Our Gang entry in Universal Music's marvelous "20th Century Masters/Millennium Collection" CD series. "Give A Damn" is one of the tracks there, and it stands out like a raised middle finger compared to the rest. I thought, "whoever decided to write and record this thing had balls." So that obviously says a lot about the band, Dorough (who would bring some of this sociological edge to his work on ABC's groundbreaking television animation program "Schoolhouse Rock"), Scharf, the ad agency, and, ultimately, Mayor Lindsay for getting the ball rolling.
Great piece! Bravo!