Insult To Injury
EDITOR:

  Iım all too aware that The Chronicle neither knows nor cares much
about organized labor, but I should think youıd at least get the simple
stuff right.Not once, not twice, but three times your story on the Service
Employees convention Tuesday identified the AFL-CIO as a ³trade
association²!  Itıs a labor federation, for Godıs sake, devoted to improving
the lives of working people, not exactly a goal of your average
profit-chasing trade association.

   Your convention story Wednesday added insult to injury by twice using
the derogatory, anti-labor term ³boss² to describe the federationıs
democratically-elected president.

   Such foolish errors ­ and much larger ones ­ are to be expected, given
that labor coverage has been turned over to the business section. Since the
stories there are meant for readers with a particular interest in business
and a generally negative view of unions, the stories naturally are slanted
that way by reporters who have little apparent understanding of labor.

   By confining labor coverage in the business section, you are virtually
ignoring general readers, including those who support unions or might want
to if they had the opportunity to read fair, thorough and expert accounts of
their activities in The Chronicle and elsewhere.

DICK MEISTER  
dickmeistersf@earthlink.net