The line is of course from 'Cool Hand Luke' starring Paul Newman, a movie that was released in what is hard-to-believe over a half-century ago in 1967. It basically sums up the difference between the inmates on the chain gang and the shotgun toting prison guards.
Anyone who is my age or older and grew up in New York City should remember the 1960s, when New York City's nickname went from "Fun City" to "Strike City," enduring strikes in that decade of the newspaper typographical union, the transit workers, the teachers, the police, the firemen and the sanitation workers. There were probably more. I think the bridge tenders went out as well, taking the tools with them that left the city's draw bridges in an permanent upright position for weeks, making it tough on traffic.
Dick Schaap appropriated the term "Fun City" when the newly inaugurated mayor, John V. Lindsay took a helicopter ride over the city during the 1966 transit strike, landed, and declared that he still thought it was a "fun city." Dick ran with it, and so did everyone else, eventually renaming the metropolis "Strike City."
In chronological order, the typographical union's shutdown of the city's eight! newspapers for what became a 114 day strike, going from December 8, 1962 to March 31, 1963, was the first one I remember in my formative years. It was devastating.
A great read of what is now a much analyzed impasse between labor and management is Scott Sherman's piece in the November 30, 2012 issue of Vanity Fair, fifty years after the start of the strike.
The head of the International Typographical Union No. 6 (The Big Six) was Bertram Powers, a man described by a government mediator as "honest, clean, democratic—and impossible." The strike grew out of the impending automation that was going to do away with linotype machines. I remember reading the obituary many years later for Bertram Powers who admitted he had already seen the future at an exhibit in Miami, Florida where is was demonstrated that computers could set type. He knew the union he grew up with was facing extinction.
On the other side of the table was the Publishers' representative, Amory H. Bradford. His ancestors didn't come over on The Mayflower, but they may as well have. His name was meant to adorn an Ivy League dormitory plaque. When he passed away in 1998 Robert McFadden's NYT obituary caught the essence of the man, describing him as an impeccably dressed 6'4" Ivy League aristocrat (Yale 1934; Skull and Bones) who was "accustomed to snapping orders to pliant subordinates." Bertram Powers was a high-school dropout, described by Mr. McFadden as "a tough, relentless negotiator, the embodiment of a gut-fighter up from the streets." Powers and Bradford were "natural enemies from the start."
(Mayor Lindsay, elected in 1965, was a Yale man as well, and likewise met his match with union leaders of all stripes.)
The Tines labor reporter, A.H. Raskin in his post mortem of the strike, recounts that "one top-level mediator said Mr. Bradford brought an attitude of such icy disdain into the conference rooms that the mediator often felt he ought to ask the hotel to send up more heat."
Today marks the 28th day of the U.S. Government shutdown, a shutdown that is being portrayed as political, a feud between a divided country of Republicans and Democrats. It only looks that way. It is a labor dispute. Twenty-eight days is the length of rehab. It is time to get back to work.
Decide for yourself who is President Trump and who is House Speaker Pelosi, but their personalities have long been etched on the faces and actions of management and labor as seen over the bargaining table.
They are both getting petty, and nasty. Today's Times is putting in words what everyone already knows: they're not playing well in the sand box.
Again I will invoke the settlement strategy of the recently departed co-founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines who proposed he and another airline's CEO settle their tag line dispute with an arm wrestling match. Despite losing, the match, Southwest was allowed to keep the disputed tag line, "Just Plane Smart," all because of Mr. Kelleher's personality.
Considering body weight, an arm wrestling match, winner take-all between the President and the Speaker is probably out. So, how about a Chef Ramsey refereed cooking contest?
The White House kitchen is being vastly underutilized these days, with Federal employees not there. Witness the fare served up to the college championship Clemson football team—a college student's delight—fast food from McDonald's and other heavily advertised food emporiums.
Nationally televised, the President and the Speaker would square off in equally equipped kitchens, making an entrée from scratch following Chef Ramsey's recipe. Chef R. would decide who prepared the best meal. Winner take all. No appeals.
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