I cannot spell

I’ve always been good at spelling, but I can never remember how to spell Apparel. As in “Don we now our gay” or American Apparel, maker of very nice t-shirts and other knitwear, who pay living wages, who offer after-work English classes and day-care for their employees. Although they’re not unionized, but whatever.

I’ve always felt that unions are a necessary friction, but that ethically avoiding them is probably good for all involved. The US auto industry is now seeing just how much it’s continuing to pay for its worker exploitation of fifty and sixty years ago and more: spiralling pension costs, concessions, inability to close a plant or exit a product line, inefficiencies, ossification. Unions help workers, but they don’t help The Company, and the company needs to survive to employ the worker who’s helped by the union… ideally it’s symbiotic but in practice it’s as imperfect as… well, it’s often still better than anything else.