Old dog, old tricks

Apparently the US government is considering using troops to break a strike in a tyre factory, according to the Financial Times - because the tyres concerned are needed for military vehicles.

Nothing really changes. The Taft hartley Act is similar to laws we have here, only on steroids, giving the executive wide ranging powers to break strikes that harm the national interest.

Couple this with reports that the US is considering increasing the size of its armed forces and you can picture that pretty much any industry could be deemed to be afecting the military struggle and the national interest.

This, then, is apparently freedom, the freedom that soldiers are allegedly dying for in Iraq and Afghanistan - the freedom to work when the boss tells you, for pay your boss determines.