FAMILY FORTUNE

Irwin and Debi Unger spoke Wednesday at Coliseum Books about their book “The Guggenheims: A Family History” (HarperCollins).

The Ungers discussed Meyer and Barbara Guggenheim’s arrival to Philadelphia in 1847, and went on to describe how they and their seven sons amassed a fortune in the mining and smelting businesses.

In The New York Sun’s review of “The Guggenheims,” Francis Morrone noted the family’s innovative methods of maintaining labor relations. Mr. Unger told the Knickerbocker that Roger Straus Sr. – who was a Guggenheim on his mother’s side – introduced pensions for employees in the 1920s.Their environmental practices were less modern. Mr. Unger said the Guggenheims’ open-pit mines of “amphitheater size” would be considered scandalous by today’s standards.

Mr. Unger called “Buddenbrooks syndrome” a central theme of “The Guggenheims.” The condition was named after a novel by Thomas Mann and details the progression of family wealth: First and second generations build equity; third generations spend money and become “concerned with philosophy” and the arts.

A second theme of the book is the disappearance of the family name. Mr. Unger did mention two people who retain the Guggenheim surname: Daniel Guggenheim is a real estate agent in California and author William Guggenheim III writes about after-death experiences.

In her portion of the talk, Mrs. Unger read passages from “The Guggenheims” about various love affairs and marriages. Tragedy struck, too. Benjamin Guggenheim, who was Peggy Guggenheim’s father, was last seen on the Titanic in full dress coat and tails saying, “at least we can go down like gentlemen.”

The book contains a few tidbits of New York newspaper history. For example, Alicia Patterson, the daughter of the publisher of the New York Daily News, Joseph Medill Patterson, founded Newsday on Long Island. Ms. Patterson’s husband, Harry Guggenheim, financed the new paper and ultimately became its publisher and editor.

The Ungers “got in the Guggenheim game” when they wrote a textbook. Each chapter profiled personalities, and one was on the Guggenheims. Mr. Unger joked about another connection – the fact that he has won two Guggenheim fellowships.

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STATE OF AMERICAN LABOR UNIONS

“Why is it necessary to discuss the state of American unions, workers rights, and justice in the workplace? The short answer is essentially because unions are in trouble and there are no workers rights,” said Richard Sachs, who moderated a panel discussion on Tuesday sponsored by the Wolfson Center for National Affairs at New School University. A former chairman of the New York State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Mr. Sachs said that only about 13% of workers in the country were union members.

A senior fellow and visiting professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Affairs, Fred Feinstein, spoke next. He said the decline of workers rights is a serious problem and that there was not a single solution to address it. He emphasized the importance of state-level initiatives such as living wage campaigns.

The president of the National Workrights Institute, Lewis Maltby, said discriminatory genetic testing in the workplace is looming, but it’s not cost-effective yet. “Now that I’ve scared you and maybe myself too,” he said, the good news is “most Americans are on our side” in opposing testing, including, he said, “Rich Republican women.”

Mr. Maltby said that the road to workplace justice does not go through the courts. While it may be true when it comes to racial justice, in terms of workplace justice, “the courts are not our friend.” He said he would provide examples where courts had been helpful. The audience then saw a blank screen. “This is not a technical glitch,” Mr. Maltby said. Legal achievements, however, are in fact numerous, including Title VII, OSHA, the National Labor Relations Act, and Family and Medical Leave.

“Capitalism is not a dirty word” appeared on Mr. Maltby’s screen. He said, “We have to accept the market economy.” But he cautioned that does not necessitate accepting extremes of wealth and poverty; it can guarantee a safety net, minimum-wage legislation, and universal medical care. He said that Americans believe in a market economy, and understanding this is important “if we are going to get the support of the American people.”

Mr. Maltby stressed that unions are essential. He said, “Twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have had to say that.” He gave an example of how his neighborhood in Princeton, N.J., had opened a nonunion grocery. “My liberal democratic neighbors laughed because I hesitated to go in a nonunion store.”

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SEAPORT STORIES

Few city museums take their role in education as seriously as the South Street Seaport Museum. It held a Valentine’s Day luncheon spotlighting education programs and challenges at the museum and elsewhere in New York City. City Council Member Gale Brewer, speaking about technology in the public schools, sketched the wide range of issues that education planners need to address, from the entrenched pro-PC and pro-Mac biases of individual teachers and principals to the ideal arrangement of desks for computer classes (in a circle).

The museum’s guests then heard from Seymour Fliegel. He is a longtime teacher and administrator in the public schools; the author of “Miracle in East Harlem,” and, as president of the Center for Educational Innovation – Public Education Association, a pioneering advocate of charter schools. Mr. Fliegel is also a peerless storyteller.

One parable he told – he insists it’s a true story – went something like this. The new teacher in a struggling school in Florida was assigned to the class with the slowest and most difficult students. In violation of school policy, the teacher managed to sneak a peek at the kids’ individual records, where he saw numbers ranging from 127 to 159 at the top of their folders. Impressed with the high IQs of the students, he taught them energetically and creatively, and the results proved to be splendid. Later, asked how he’d managed to work wonders with those students, he spoke of their high IQ scores. What, those numbers? Those, he was told, actually were their locker numbers. Moral of the story: Treat kids as thugs and that’s how they’ll behave. Instead, treat them as workers whose job is learning. A prerequisite for high achievement is high expectations.