Pittston miners' strike begins
Citations (1)
- Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media whole source · open book
In a notable illustration of the applicability of the propaganda model, the nine-month-long Pittston miners’ strike that began in April 1989 was accorded much less attention, and less friendly treatment, than the Soviet miners’ strikes of the summer of that same year.124 From 1977 through 1999, while the incomes of the top 1 percent of households grew by 84.8 percent and the top 10 percent by 44.6 percent, the bottom 60 percent lost ground and the income of the lowest 20 percent fell by 12.5 percent.125 Real hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees (i.e., the 80 percent of the workforce that holds working-class jobs) fell by 4.8 percent between 1973 and 1999.126 This, along with the adverse trend of social indicators in the same period,127 suggests that the welfare of the majority declined in this era of high employment, a “new economy,” and a spectacular upswing in the stock market.
chapter: Introduction to the 2002 Edition