Joel Magalnick’s interview with Andy Stern, former president of Service Employees International Union (“Where the next jobs won’t come from,” Jan. 24), was illuminating. Mr. Stern is accurate, I think, about the challenges he sees for American workers, but admits to being clueless about where we are headed. Mr. Stern is wedded to the paradigm of organized labor, which (other than for public-sector unions with an iron rice bowl until municipal bankruptcy) is fading away and is not part of the future. Other commentators with greater vision do see what is ahead. Most notable is George Gilder, author of “Wealth and Poverty,” and his latest book, “Knowledge and Power” (instructive reading for Mr. Stern). Gilder notes that we are passing from the machine age to the information age in which knowledge is the key to employment. Others have noted the passing of large bureaucratic corporations as the wellspring of American jobs and the rise of smaller, more dynamic enterprises led by entrepreneurial management. These are not now or will ever be fertile ground for unions. I recommend to JTNews readers Mr. Gilder’s writings. He occasionally speaks in Seattle at the Discovery Institute. When he does, it should not be missed.
Robert Wilkes, , Bellevue