We’re still at it compiling our list of successful companies (defined as profitable in 2008) which are unionized. You can watch the Sorkin performance in this union-bashing segment of MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
A few things become quickly apparent as you start going over the list and thinking for a moment about the degree of unionization in U.S. industry. The first is that unions remain pervasive in old economy industries like natural resource extraction and manufacturing, industries which have taken their licks of course but continue in many cases to remain profitable. Unions also remain pervasive in older industries that we don’t always think of as old economy because they’ve adapted to new technologies, industries like telecommunications and entertainment (from the TV networks to the movie studios), where many companies have done very well.
Then there’s the mergers and acquisitions dynamic, which complicates what it means to be “unionized.” Divisions and subsidiaries of the same company may have vastly different levels of unionization, depending on the kind of work they do and their history prior to being acquired. So there’s less black and white in large companies, and they can’t be as easily categorized as union or non-union shops.
If all of those nuances complicate putting together a list of successful unionized companies, then they surely argue against as sweeping a charge as Sorkin’s: that you can’t name any such companies.
