"The Wisconsin demonstrations and sit-ins supporting labor rights show that labor can win broad public support when it is perceived as fighting for broad public interests"

The fundamental problem with the author's approach is that he lets the tail wag the dog. That is, he and his peers fail miserably to place their enterprise on a foundation of firm principles.

The above quote perfectly illustrates this point. The author cites the Wisconsin demonstrations as validation for unions supporting broad public interests. But in doing so the author conveys the corrupt idea that such "proof" is necessary. In other words, when such "proof" is lacking then supposedly the principle collapses.

The critical fact is that the value of the public interests needs no proof, no validation. This principle stands on its own and will never fall. The public interests are felt by the people like joy and pain are felt. In fact, the author is engaged, either wittingly or not, in a campaign of destruction - destruction of the people's very own personal connections with their very own personal feelings, senses, intuitions, needs, and aspirations.

The author has thus, wittingly or not, engaged in the massively destructive institutional crime of disempowering and enslaving the people to... DAS KAPITAL!!!!

Merkan labor unions have long been in bed with das kapital. And their bed-mate has finally eaten them for lunch. Now, after their demise, their "leaders" come running back to the far left, the platform of the people. The people should only accept this guy and his ilk back into the fold under the most rigorous terms: Labor unions must get out of the bed of das kapital and strongly support the people's RIGHT TO OWN/CONTROL PRODUCTION.

I love the idea of labor unions in theory, but in reality their higher level managers get too cozy with the senior corporate and institutional management, and the behavior of people on picket lines -- self-righteous jeering -- can be odious. And some of the unions got way too tangled up with organized crime.

Still, it is true that the middle class was better off when a larger percentage of the workers had union representation. It was the only brake on management's desire to turn the working class into minimum wage earning at will employees with no rights whatsoever.

I'm not sure how it could be got back. The propaganda that unions are bad for workers is out there and growing, metastasizing, every day.

"Organized labor will have a better future if it chooses the second road."

This is as far as one needs to read to decipher the utter defeatism of this article and its author.

There is another alternative. One that sees control of production in the workers' hands. One that eliminates empire lap dog unions in favor of real unions, run by real workers. In fact, this is the only alternative. This author's method only further enslaves the working class to capitalist demands.

The economic crises facing ordinary working people and organized labor have had no serious effect upon the consciousness of the "leadership" of organized labor, such as AFL-CIO President Trumka or the Executive Council, representing some 50 unions.

The UAW Bob Price, in forcing remaining employed auto workers to accept 50% pay cuts, with loss of benefits, no strike pledges, etc., is effectively a "business partner" of management, a facilitator of corporate exploitation of UAW workers, to make U.S. auto makers "competitive" with foreign labor. That is, the UAW facilitates the maximization of profit on the backs of the U.S. workers.

AFL-CIO President Trumka creates lists of demands which are nothing but "wish lists", with absolutely no strategy of how to accomplish these goals. Trumka was a big supporter of Obama and "Health Care Reform" despite the unanimous support of "single payer" at the Pittsburgh 2009 convention that elected Trumka.

For the past 30 YEARS wages of workers have not kept up with inflation
and often have actually declined! (listen to economist Richard Wolff "Capitalism hits the fan" http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/ )

Conservative AFL-CIO and organized labor "leadership" refuses to understand
this basic concept, essential to develop a political strategy to fight back, that millions of workers are now painfully understanding:

It's the CAPITALIST economy, stupid!"

The economy of any nation must be judged upon how well it serves the basic economic needs of the vast majority of people who make up society. The essential economic needs of the majority for "living wage" jobs, along with free public education, affordable health care, etc. are all being looted and destroyed by the corporate capitalists who now own and control the economy, the mass media, and both Democratic and Republican political parties.

Here is an essential political strategy needed by organized labor:

1. Demand and help sponsor a nightly one-hour program on PBS to inform and educate all working people as to their economic needs and perspectives on current affairs. Corporate owned private sector media and corporate controlled public sector NPR, PBS, and "Progressive media", NOT ONE major newspaper in the U.S., has CENSORED this economic perspective and frames ALL political discourse to
stay within pro-corporate perspectives! The mass indoctrination of working people
by Rush Limbaugh, by Fox News, etc. must be opposed with the economic facts!

2. Break with conservative, corporatist Obama and the anti-labor, pro-corporate Democratic Party! In 2008, 2010, the AFL-CIO, with the UAW, gave Obama and the Democrats some $200 million dollars campaign funding!

3. Start supporting and run pro-labor independents as candidates from the 11 million strong ranks of organized labor!

4. Call for the formation of a new political party, perhaps called the SOLIDARITY PARTY, to powerfully unite trade union organized workers and millions of unorganized working people, NOW DESPERATE FOR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP.

5. The first principle of the new SOLIDARITY PARTY is to REFUSE ALL CORPORATE MONEY AND CORPORATE AGENDAS, which have thoroughly corrupted both major parties.

AFL-CIO has been a job-protection racket for decades now.

I agree it is time they acted like real unions of workers. ;)

We can all 'join' the AFL-CIO and then tell Trumpka our feelings.

Traditionally US Labor Unions have a history [especially at the leader-ship level] of being myopic in their vision. Some unions have in effect been bigoted [blocking access to certain trades & professions to Black & Browns folk - IE: too many Police & Firemen's Unions], some were corrupted by getting in bed w the Mafia [IE: the Teamsters], still others corrupted by making too many concessions to Corporations & politicians IE: UAW getting in bed w the Big-3 Detroit Car makers on blocking CAFE standards & hyping SUV's... - The AFL-CIO aiding & abetting Reagan vis-a-vis the Air-Traffic controllers strike... - Union leadership wedded to the Democrat party- even when Slick Willie rolled-out & rolled over them w NAFTA [or conversely too many white working class folk are so-called 'Reagan' Democrats]... And Unions failure to stand-up for ALL Workers - not just their own relatively narrow constituency [dues paying membership]!
So now of those 'Chickens have all come home to Roost' -&- Its doubtful if this anti-working class / working poor trend can be reversed - it certainly won't be reversed without Solidarity for a HUGE & PROTRACTED FIGHT w Corps & Corp controlled poly-tricksters & Corp controlled News Media, etc, etc, etc!!!

People need to accept the truth that, they, as individuals, have absolutely no effective voice when dealing with corporate management. "We must hang together, or we will certainly hang as individuals" is as relevant today as when it was first spoken.

Meanwhile, our government has decided to telegraph its future intentions:

Snippet:
[The United States has announced that its next test of a Minuteman III will occur on September 21, 2011. Rather than considering how it might participate and bring awareness to the International Day of Peace, the United States will be testing one of its nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles that, 20 years after the end of the Cold War, continue to be kept on high-alert in readiness to be fired on a few moments notice.

Of course, the missile test will have a dummy warhead rather than a live one, but its purpose will be to assure that the delivery system for the Minuteman III nuclear warheads has no hitches. As Air Force Colonel David Bliesner has pointed out, “Minuteman III test launches demonstrate our nation’s ICBM capability in a very visible way, deterring potential adversaries while reassuring allies.”

So, on the 2011 International Day of Peace, the United States has chosen not “to honor a cessation of hostilities,” but rather to implement a very visible, $20 million test of a nuclear-capable missile.]

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/db_article.php?article_id=283

There's lots of money for war technology even if the poor and middle class in the USA have to starve to finance the war machine.

This is what the USA has become.

Ah, yes, well the first test is whether you can convince the working folks that would be constructing the tar sands pipeline that this is NOT a good idea - if you can do that, maybe there is hope for your idea .....

But i think you are moving in the right direction - labor has to get out of it's "Labor" box and take a wider view. Labor rights are but a subset of human rights, economic security is but a subset of general welfare.

Labor, IMO, has been thinking too small for too long .....

_____________________________________
"Labor has always had two hearts beating within a single breast – one representing a particular group of workers, the other responding to the wider needs of working people as a whole. But now unions can only protect their members by championing the interests of all working people......

.....The Wisconsin demonstrations and sit-ins supporting labor rights show that labor can win broad public support when it is perceived as fighting for broad public interests, rather than the “special interests” of one union or group of workers.

Exactly! You hit the nail right on the head. They must employ the general strike and insist that they get total freedom to establish unions wherever and whenever they want. Then follow up with mass, ongoing recruitment campaigns. We must have labor back above 20% in the next 20 years. The power differential between Labor & Capital cannot stand.

"Our greed-driven society is economically unsustainable – witness the renewed catastrophe of the global economy. It is socially unsustainable – witness the destruction of the middle class and the polarization of rich and poor worldwide. And it is environmentally unsustainable – witness the melting of the Arctic, the rise in sea levels, and the unprecedented increase in extreme weather events caused by our failure to halt climate change ......

...... That means putting millions of people to work creating a sustainable economy, society, and environment."

Excellent points in connecting economic/worker sustainability with environmental sustainability.

"It was often said that workers and citizens turned the Wisconsin state rotunda into a Tahrir square. Perhaps the future of labor depends on turning America into a Tahrir square."

Yes! Labor needs to get serious!

Labor, like Justice, left this nation long ago and is not coming back. If we do not take the wealth accumulated by the greedy hoarders and provide Great Society safety nets (food, shelter, health care and clothing for everyone) we will all hang, beg, starve, die in the streets.

Capitalism is Sicko.