[Willie Green]

Stinking unions step in to featherbed and pillage the risk and labor of others. Management, which has heretofore maintained at least a muturally beneficial relationship with its workers, is now the enemy. "Labor difficulties" arise, usually in the form of collective extortion. And a once-thriving facility is reduced to a shambles while the demons of socialism dance in the light of a dying fire.

(Thanks for the "ping", Red.)

IronJack, it's always been my impression that the North Carolina industrial work force was predominantly non-union.

Could you show us where "stinking unions" were a factor in this specific situation? (I couldn't find any such reference in the article.) Or are you just having another of your "senior moments"???

[IronJack]

Almost 600 employees, many the sons and daughters of Ecusta workers, are left wondering how they will support their families after owner Purico closed the mill following a bitter 10-month labor dispute

In addition, I was under the impression that many -- if not ALL -- of the Carolina textile mills were heavily unionized, which is why to this day the textile industry in the Carolinas is virtually decimated.

I'm not THAT senior.

[IronJack]

Almost 600 employees, many the sons and daughters of Ecusta workers, are left wondering how they will support their families after owner Purico closed the mill following a bitter 10-month labor dispute

In addition, I was under the impression that many -- if not ALL -- of the Carolina textile mills were heavily unionized, which is why to this day the textile industry in the Carolinas is virtually decimated.

I'm not THAT senior.

[Red Jones]

one thing I noticed in this article is that the fellow named Strauss who started the company apparently was able to do so because he himself made some technical innovation that allowed him to produce superior quality cigarette papers. I don't think that happens very much any more, that a person with an innovation ends up starting a company. Today the managers are in charge, people with managerial and financial expertise get to own new companies nowadays. People who merely make the nuts and bolts innovations that make it all possible are just used today by the more dominant managerial types.