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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, AUGUST 14, 1981
PAGE 16
tiations and to fire the dissenting federal employees. A man of character,
the President reminded the strikers of the oath they agreed to when accept
ing their positions--not to strike against the government. But in our day, a
man's word, tragically, means very 1ittle. Probably very few controllers
paid any attention to this clause in their contracts or to various pieces of
legislation, as well as judicial decisions, prohibiting public employee
strikes.
So along comes a president who, in his own words, reminds them "to do their
duty"--and, suddenly, principle clashed with self-interest. Marvin Stone,
editor of the U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT, writes in his column in the August
17, 1981 issue:
Back of this latest strike lies a strange and disturbing conviction,
growing over the last few years, that it is fair to violate the law if
you disagree with it. This is a false idea, dangerous to the perpetra"='
tors themselves as members of the whole. A government of the people
must protect its authority from destruction, and strikes against it
cannot be tolerated.
Lawlessness--"iniquity"--was prophesied to abound in the end-time era (Matt.
24:12).
Labor unrest, notes Jack Beatty in the LOS ANGELES TIMES, August 9, 1981, is
bound to increase:
In a broader perspective, last week's strike may be seen as the first of
the national white-collar strikes� we are likely to see more of them,
in both the public and the private sectors. The disjuncture between
our culture of limitless self-satisfaction and o'urshrinking inflation
ridden economy make a heaping up of labor-management relations almost
inevitable.
A culture of "limitless self-satisfaction"? Note again verses two and four
of II Timothy 3: "lovers of self...lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of
God."
Most people don
1
t realize the "strike weapon"--whether against public or
private sectors--is a fairly recent phenomenon in human history. It is now
taken so much for granted that AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland calls it a
"basic human right." Moreover, the concept of government either owing or
guaranteeing one's standard of living has become entrenched in workers'
minds in a particularly odious manifestation of the "get" approach to life.
Joseph C. Harsch, long-time correspondent for the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONI
TOR, writes in his August 11 column:
The controllers wanted a lot more than a six percent raise. What they
wanted, along with about everyone else in the United States, and also
in most other countries, is to have the government underwrite their
standard of living and see to it that they enjoy, every year, an im
provement in standard of living, not a decline.
This is the problem of the times for government. It is universal. It
does not distinguish between capitalist and communist countries. It
does not distinguish between developed and underdeveloped, between
North and South, or East and West. Almost everywhere in these times