(b)

Hopeless task, Kevin That era is gone. Might as well try to bring back the Grange.

Working class people want to go to college; end racial discrimination in admission practices. Working class people tend to oppose abortion; end the left's support of infanticide. Working class people are patriots; stop smearing the troops every chance you get, and disown hacks like Congressman "the marines slaughter innocents" Murtha.

That... would be a good start.

So what's the difference? The most common response was: unions.

Kevin, you still don't understand the working class. The working class are against unions. They see it as run by a bunch of corrupt union bosses who steal money from the working class and prevent businesses from firing lazy inefficient workers. That's why the working class likes Walmart so much and want to work at Walmart. They see workers there who work hard and aren't under the control of the iron fist of union bosses. The best way for liberals to attract the working class would be to eliminate unions as much as possible instead of supporting unions as you are doing now. This is the best way to attract the working class.

The answer is c), abandon the Democratic Party and begin supporting social democracy.

I have to say (b) as well. Having never been in a union, it surprised me how much young, non-union workers seem to despise the whole concept of unions. I thought the average Americans agreed that unions were a good thing. I was wrong.

Working class people want to go to college; end racial discrimination in admission practices.

But hands off those preferences for "legacy" applicants.

Working class people tend to oppose abortion; end the left's support of infanticide.

But not a dime for healthcare or family planning.

Working class people are patriots; stop smearing the troops every chance you get,

Just hush up and march off to the pointless, politically-motivated adventures the White House invents.

Hawk, you make it too easy. Try advancing a rational argument, willya?

Here, AH, let me fix that for you:

"Working class people want to go to college; restore the cuts in Pell grants dating back to the Reagan years. Working class people tend to oppose abortion except that they also tend to agree it should be legal under some circumstances. Working class people are patriots; stop cutting veterans' benefits and hold the officers and politicians as well as the enlisted personnel responsible for the war crimes committed in our name, like Colin Powell said we would when he told the world to "watch what we do," so that our country will again be respected in the world as a beacon of freedom."

There you go. No charge.

The working class are against unions.

Haw!

And doctors are against medicine, scientists oppose research, professors hate education, and business dislikes profit.

Unions are by definition the working class.

Isn't another huge issue here the way in which the dem party actually operated at the local level and at conventions, etc? The party org was pretty gritty at the local level, and local party boss types has a lot of say on who the aprty would nominate, the platform ,etc. Over time, this changed a great deal. E.g. specific interest/ advocacy groups were given much more say at conventions, etc, professional advisors and communications types assumed a more central role, and the party lost its traditional linkages into the concerns of the working-class.

Perhaps one necessary measure would be to temper the influence of supposed policy experts in favour of a more grass-roots approach?

While I think the Dems should be foursquare behind efforts to rebuild the private-sector union movement, the reality is that the lack of consequences for corporations that illegally frustrate organizing efforts puts huge barriers in the way of such organizing.

I'd think, though, that the Dem need to hold onto working-class votes in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Oregon, and pick up some more such votes in places like Ohio, West Virginia, and Arkansas, would be reason itself for the Dems to make sure some people capable of speaking for the working class had a seat at the table.

The abrupt switch of West Virginia from the Dem column to the GOP column in Presidential elections especially upsets me. The workers of WV used to have a sense that the Dems were on their side and understood their problems; that has clearly changed. And they've got a lot of problems that only the Democratic Party would even consider addressing. I feel that the Dems dropped the ball on the whole mine-safety thing, only giving it a brief bit of attention at the time of the mine fatalities earlier this year.

Kevin, any chance that Washington Monthly founder Charles Peters, who knows more than a bit about West Virginia, could be talked into a guest post here on the confluence of working class and WV issues?

I see the future empowerment of the working classes through the organization of consumers unions and boycotts. Private sector unions used the vote as a method for problem solving but it was the collected money that made it happen. Stop buying poisins and the message that come with it.

To Kevin's

Q:

"the Democratic Party in the 30s and 40s was mostly headed by Harvard-educated rich guys, and they seemed to do pretty well on working class issues. FDR wasn't exactly a prole, after all. So what's the difference?"

A:

The depression was real back then. Then too so was social revolution...Harvard-educated rich guys don't come to well in revolutions. As FDR said [paraphrasing here], "I'm trying to save the silly rich man's ass and all I get is grief".

As a pro-union former union member I think one of the reasons unions are "hated" by young working class people is the leaders, like the leaders of the Dems and the Millionaire Media types all lost touch with the actual working class. Add to that an over 100 year (class) war by conservatives against unions, a war that has been an Invasion and occupation for the last 30 years, you have a totally crippled working class that completly buys into the ruling class anti-union fervor.

Unions help ordinary people see through the lies of the ruling class, regardless of political affiliation, and see what a rigged sham this so-called capitalistic system is and how great wealth only occurs through great exploitation.

Why do you think the GOP has worked so hard over the past 60 years to bust and smear labor unions? Their entire existence is built upon an edifice of lies.

Quaker in a basement - I've known all sorts of working-class people over the years who are anti-union.

You can argue about why they're anti-union, but that doesn't change the fact. (I'd say it's a combination of corporate and media propaganda, to the extent there's a difference, but that's neither here nor there.)

Unions may be working class, but a distressingly small portion of the working class is made up of union members.

A piece of this could in fact be that the country is now SO rich that elites can and do completely separate themselves from the places in which working class Americans live. In seemingly less developed societies with living standards more like the US in the 30s(I'm thinking at this moment of Beirut, but the example is not alone) filthy rich people thrive and exploit and all that, but they live cheek by jowl with the poor and working class. Not here. The rich live insulated from any contact with the majority in gated enclaves they may not even recognize themselves as such.

I think the pols of the 30s and 40s while rich when they got to Congress were not rich all their lives. Thus, they experienced living life from payday to payday. Today's pols have had money all their lives. I vaguely remember reading that Clinton was the first President in a very long time that wasn't a millionaire when he entered the office. Then, there were political families like the Kennedys, who learned about fighting for those with less than they from their mothers/parents/church. The memory of hard work for little money just isn't there in Congress any more. It still was in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

On economic issues, many people think the Democrats offer solutions that, while well intentioned, would only damage the economy in the long run and thus hurt middle class workers in the long run. The Democrats should not argue only on the basis that they can improve the standard of living for the poor and the squeezed middle class. The Democrats must argue that they can grow the economy as well, if not better than Republicans, while at the same time working to make sure all Americans, not just the wealthy elite, are awared opportunities by the growth.

Bill Clinton grew the economy and helped Americans. He pursued a strong economic policy by balancing the federal budget, which allowed for lower interest rates, as the government wasn't competing with businesses to borrow money. At the same time, Clinton passed the Earned Income Tax Credit among other measures to help working class Americans and help them help themselves.

One of the big myths is that economic policy is a decision between morality and economic growth. Economic policy can be pro-business and pro-people. Universal health care system (preferably a voucher system) would protect all Americans, save 18,000 lives a year, and grow the economy faster, not slower, as it would be the most efficient system and businesses would not have to pay for health care.

The Democrats must, and can, be pro-growth and pro-labor.

Kevin:

As your wonkish self should know, playing isolate-the-variable across history is much trickier than the one-word answers it lends itself to suggests.

Unions were only a part of the difference. There was also a sense of noblesse oblige inherited from the Gilded Age (when income disparaties were worse than today) that was much stronger among FDR's generation. Also, Socialism still had strong intellectual creedence, and the Soviet Union (even through the 30s purge trials) was seen as an attractive rival to our for the most part safety net-free economic system. Recall it was the self-avowed Communists in the labor movement that did most of the agitating for the minimum wage, the 40 hour work week, unemployment insurance, etc.

Culturally, AH does make a relevant point: American politics didn't dwell on social issues that tend to cleave the working class from the elites. And with class consciousness not a dirty word, Catholics, Jews, Southern Protestants identified much more with their economic situation than they felt resentment at the loose morals of FDR's class. It took until the 50s and 60s before we had the luxury of letting intellectual critiques of the social structure percolate into popular culture and begin to alienate socially conservative working people.

Unions also aren't a uniformly liberal force. Trade unionism has always been opposed to organize-the-masses, leading to pacts and truces between the AFL and CIO, etc. When the smokestack unions were co-opted away from socialist ideals into an "aristocracy of labor" (which American business could afford at the time), it lost a lot of its political threat. The Teamsters were a conservative force long before the Japanese did significant damage to our auto industry.

Whatever the mix of factors, it doesn't involve an "empathy deficit" on the part of today's socially liberal, economically prosperous Democratic elite. Lords know, just about everybody no matter how wealthy they've become knows people or has family members who never made it up the ladder. Bond traders and Silicon Valley execs who donate to the Dems genuinely feel the pain of folks like yours truly.

Bob

FDR, JFK, Andrew Jackson, and Thomas Jefferson were all solidly entrenched in their respective elites.

There is nothing per se prohibitive about being a member of an elite and being a good Democrat, pro working class, liberal, or whatever according to the standards and tempo of the times.

The problem facing the Democrats today is that it is one thing to assert working class rights, on the one hand, and an entirely different thing to effect them, on the other.

Basically, because of the rise of monopolies and industrialism during the Gilded Age, the liberal tradition came to the conclusion that capitalism was - at least in part - part of the problem and not part of the solution, which typically could be solved by governmental action - particularly federal governmental action. Keynesian economics contributed strongly to this.

Because of globalization, Keynesism broke down in the 1970's, and the federal government is becoming less and less potent as an agent to effect anything. Yet liberals cannot or will not come up with new, non-federal approaches but rather keep on singing the same mantra.

What is necessary is to figure out what would actually benefit the working class and then develop programs and policies to effect these benefits. This almost certainly will NOT invovle the federal government.

Everyone at the table seemed to agree that the Democratic Party was out of touch with the working class in America, broadly defined. Why? Because Dem leaders are a bunch of college-educated elites who make a lot of money and don't really identify with the problems of people who make $30,000 a year.

And this makes the Democrats different from the Republicans, who are a bunch of college-educated elites who make a lot of money and don't really identify with the problems of people who make $30,000 a year...how, exactly?

The working class are against unions.

The working class are not against unions, they are against corrupt millionaries who do not represent the needs of the rank & file. And Republicans took great advantage of this over the past years.

Unions are still very important, but not at the expense of the voter, who gets you into office. Plenty of unions supported John Kerry. How many of their members voted for and organized for John Kerry?

The Dems need to do what they have always had to do, reinvent themselves constantly for the new generation. Republicans will always tout the same agenda over and over, as they are romantics who dream of the good ol days.

Dems need to:
- organize at the grass roots level
- apply time honored values for the new generation
- keep their leadership from sticking their foot in their mouths from laziness and "base stoking" (see Howard Dean). Or even get rid of the old guard of Dems (Kerry, Gore, Kennedy, Pelosi, etc.)
- Define Reps, rather then constantly defending Rep definitions of them
- Stop falling into Republican traps!
- Keep the kooks (anarchists & dumb people) from representing liberals
- accept union support, but do not let the unions represent them
- Not run from a fight

If the Dems do these things, they can begin to build momemtum.

Harvard-educated rich guys don't come to well in revolutions.

Pfffttt...I'll be fine. I don't keep that helicopter fueled, ready and waiting by the Wall Street helipad day and night for nothing, you know.

Would you argue that the Republican business elite is in touch with the poorer social conservatives or their party? I don't think so. So this Rich/Poor split in the Democratic Party is not really the problem.

Furthermore, Al is wrong that workers despise unions. The loss of the industrial base in America is the main reason that union membership has declined. And we are all worse off for it. We have seen declines in labor laws and many social programs for the middle class over the years.

I don't know the answer. However, I believe that we are nearing a reorganization of the parties. The Republican party is a mass of contradictions. Democrats haven't found their message. Or rather have lost it since Clinton.

For the life of me I can't understand why we Democrats have abandoned the successful policies of the Clinton adminstration: a mix of business-friendy policiies along with making opportunity available to all.

I think the pols of the 30s and 40s while rich when they got to Congress were not rich all their lives....The memory of hard work for little money just isn't there in Congress any more. It still was in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

Mazurka - I think you've got a point. And it reminds me of something that has bugged the hell out of me for years: how the pay for state legislators in many (most?) states is astonishingly low - 10-15K a year, in many places - meaning that working-class and middle-class people can't afford to win a race for state legislature, because they can't live off of the pay. State legislatures in such states are for the wealthy, or those with jobs with great flexibility (e.g. lawyer).

Since other than starting off with a lot of money, the best way to position yourself for a run for Congress is to be a state legislator, this effectively closes off the one natural route for a working-class person to get into Congress.

Kevin, I think you are right on here. The decline in influence of labor unions has had a direct impact on the policies and practices of the democratic party and in tern has hasened the decline of labor union effectiveness in general.

I am one who used to despise labor unions. Many of the reasons for this have been discussed by others in there responses here. I realized this was a mistake when I saw corporations starting to encroach on jobs that were traditionally considered management jobs. It was obvious that labor at any level no longer had a voice and corporations were free to largely do as they please with regard to employment and compensation. This disregard for labor is one of the reasons government policy permitted the raid of 401k's during the stock market fall of 2000. What must change, is all persons who work for a living must consider themselves working class people. Does not matter if college educated or not. If your income depends on your labor, or your time, and you don't have sufficient resources to be financially independent, then you are working class. If you cannot afford to be unemployed indefinitely then you are working class. If all such persons don't begin to organize and form a coalition that can challenge multinational corporations (at least in this country), the middle class will dissapear and so will our way of life. Don't wait until all lab work is sent to Bangledesh, or Legal briefs are prepared in Hungary, or Illnesses are diagnosed in India. All labor and professional catgegories of work are threatned.

is this a hopeless task given the realities of the modern economy?

Huh? Economics isn't something forced on us by Martians. "The modern economy", whatever that is, is something that people collectively built. Or allowed to happen, take your pick. It's not a force of nature.

I think the Democrats need to reconnect with working people, but I don't know if unions are the vehicle.

Most working people are not members of unions. Many who are union members are less than enchanted with their entrenched leadership.

There is a reason the business leaders have been successful in painting union leaders in a bad light, many union bosses are as corrupt as any member of the Republican congressional leadership. Like congressional Republicans they seem to think they have a God given right to steal from their constituents. Working people are not stupid. They just feel powerless.

Somebody needs to step forward to fight for the working and middle classes, just don't expect that somebody to be part of the union movement.

Too damn bad too. In their day unions were absolutely essential to America.

I see the problem as demographic. When unions were strong, we were a much more homogenous society. When things began to break into identity groups in the 1970s, the broad appeal to union members weakened.

People today identify themselves in much more individualistic and distinctive ways than "union block vote." Even if unions were strong, people would see themselves as "other things" first -- single parents, Hispanic, born-again, over 70, etc.

The Dems didn't abandon the unions -- they just moved on to stronger voter identifications.

Kevin, I don't think it's "the realities of the modern economy" that makes union organizing so difficult in the U.S., it's the fact that the law makes it all but illegal to form a union. I seem to remember you writing something like that yourself a few years ago.

Repeal Taft-Hartley and put people on the NLRB who aren't industry shills, and then see what happens to union levels in America.

Somebody here order a moo shu pork and a Tsingdow?

Dat'll be 8.95.

I think you're making a big leap by assuming that the only difference between a man like John Kerry and a man like FDR is unions.

That's what you're asking us to believe, and if you think more deeply about this, I'm sure that, like me, you'll come up with many other explanations for why FDR succeeded and Kerry didn't.

Here are some of the possibilities:

FDR ran against a technocrat who wasn't fixing the Depression that happened during his term. Kerry talks and thinks in lawyer-speak.

FDR was an expert at shaping and controlling the media, while at the current time, the Republican Party are the experts at shaping and controlling the media.

We all need to be careful that our own political interests --- for instance, in unions --- don't lead us into wishful thinking that these interests are having a powerful effect on current elections. Rushing in to "fix" the current role of unions without more careful analysis is a lose-lose situation.

Not wanting to dig through the inevitable crap in the comments, I still need to observe that it might not be the unions that represented that link.

NB: I'm a big believer in the union movement, but don't think we're likely to overturn 60 years of anti-union law, dating back to Taft Hartley, in the near future. But I think unions are good things on their own, and would like to see them strengthened. But what I'm about to argue isn't about unions per se, but rather that you found the wrong social indicator, so strengthening unions might well not have the effect you desire. We should do it anyway, IMHO, but not because it will give the elite more of a connection to working people.

It is plausible to me that Mickey Kaus was write in his book called, IIRC, The End of Equality, and that this is the end result of the degree to which Americans have segregated by income over the past 40 years. (Yes, I'm mixing phrases from Robert Reich in with Mickey, and yes, nobody is more surprised than I at the idea that I might agree with Mickey Kaus.)

Look, thanks to a dearth of meaningful interaction between different social classes in both the public and private sectors, the connection between college educated elites and "working class" people has shrunk. But that's OK. After all, FDR, as you point out, was never going to be a regular guy. Neither were any of the top level advisors.

But it's the next level down from the inner circle that once included people who went to public schools, who served in the military, and who went to church with working class people, and whose kids did the same. But now, the next economic step up from me would not even consider living in the city with children. This continues until you get to the very rich, who do live in cities, but whose kids don't go to school with mine. And certainly, as we liberals never tire of pointing out, very few who have an economic choice join the army or work for much of their lives in an arena in which they would ever actually know working people.

So maybe Mickey's right on this one. No matter what we do with the unions, as long as we have a volunteer military (and I oppose the draft) and schools being paid by local property taxes, so that segregating by income is actually a rational parenting choice, and a lack of public sphere gathering places other than sporting events, that disconnect will continue.

Sorry Just my two cents.

NeilS is right - union power has declined because America's economy has shifted to become less industrial and more service. Unions haven't caught up. It's happening, though. And the gate crashers are talking about it.

Ron
very few who have an economic choice join the army...as long as we have a volunteer military (and I oppose the draft)...that disconnect will continue.

I posted in a previous thread, and think it ought to be a stand-alone topic. The military is not going away. Ever. And hopefully it will stay volunteer. It is one of the most important arms of the government, in that it has toe power to cause great good or great harm. But it is also predomininately manned by conservative-leaning folks.

I think it is the country's loss that liberals do not join the military, at least to serve a single tour. You give reasons in your post, but also the military is simply too important to be left to just one portion of our society. And it is a shame that it takes a draft to get liberals into the military, in general. What happened to role models such as the Kennedys? Not the recent batch, obviously.

"For the life of me I can't understand why we Democrats have abandoned the successful policies of the Clinton adminstration: a mix of business-friendy policiies along with making opportunity available to all."

I have no idea who you might be refering to. What Democrat has come out against business friendly policies and making opportunity available for all? What we had with Clinton is somebody that could communicate and had a microphone. There's still Democrats that can communicate (Edwards, Clark, Feingold, Gore and more) but they don't have their speeches covered on a daily basis.

red state mike,

i don't think there is a long line of conservatives waiting to join the military either. on the other hand, the list of iraq war veterans running for congress this fall is tilted heavily toward the democratic column, not the republican. figure that one out.

I don't think one has to cite unions as the explanation rather than simply working-class roots. Many of the best-educated in the '30s and '40s had parents or relatives who worked in blue-collar jobs. Today, however, the best-educated are children of the previous generation of best-educated people and more removed from their family's working-class roots.

Another factor could be geographic mobility -- today the best-educated often live far away from the communities where they grew up and are relatively unattached to their own communities. Plus, economic segregation has increased greatly as suburbanization has increased.

And it is a shame that it takes a draft to get liberals into the military, in general. What happened to role models such as the Kennedys? Not the recent batch, obviously.

Yes, or role models such as the Bushes? Well, actually just one Bush. Not the recent batch, obviously.

But yeah, the increasing polarization of the military would make a great topic.

Might as well try to bring back the Grange.

I think that in the 30's - 60's the Democrats placed a higher value on upward mobility. Now, in an increased emphasis on reducing "inequity", the party seems to positively disparage upward mobility, especially of the Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian immigrants, and the sort of people who work at and shop at Wal-Mart. This is obviously not a dramatic difference, but enough to reduce the Democratic Party nationwide from majority status to minority status. Whereas Truman tried to end racial discrimination in the armed services, modern liberals disparage those of minority status who rise through the ranks to positions of eminence and power. Furthermore, unions share part of the responsibility for making America's "mature" industries less competitive in the world markets. Every American industry faces more international competition now than in the 30s-60s.

On this topic, it is worth re-reading Bill Clinton's campaign speaches, especially those of the primaries, and contrast with those of Al Gore (though Gore actually got more votes, he also was running against a weaker candidate whom he ought to have beaten by a wide margin.) Clinton had the most successful economic policies of modern times, but the Democrats seem to have drifted away from them.

I think it is correct to say that labor unions are not the solution to the problems of working class people. For one, labor unions are concerned with organizing local groups and classes of employees. The perception of unions is they are corrupt and don't provide adequate value to their constituents.

But todays challenge is much greater than any faced by any labor unions. The challenge is to insure a fair distribution of income between investor class and working class people. There is no reason why those who risk capital should be rewarded disproportionately to those who work to provide return on that capital. The reason for the disparity is multinational corporations have representation in Washington that gives them a decided advantage over working class people. Many labor, pension, and employment laws and regulations have been created and revised to favor the investor class.

The solution is a national organization that appeals to a broad base of people who work for a living. A "Working Class PAC" perhaps. But some natinoal organization is needed. The democratic party will not, and should not, sponsor such an organization.

This is a bit magic-bullet-ish of me, but I see this as another reason we should be working for publicly funded elections along the lines of those in AZ, ME, CT. The working people could have elected officials who actually represent them and wouldn't have to have unions as proxies. For more info, see California Clean Money Campaign.

That said, I think unions have an incredibly important role to play in the workplace (as well as in the overall political landscape), and support re-strengthening US labor law. Something like 50% of US workers say they would join a union if there were one in their workplace, and we need to lower the current barriers to organization.

job mobility is another factor working against unions. my father worked in a union shop for more than 3 decades. most of his co-workers were there for similarly long durations. today, you're an old-timer at most jobs if you've been there 5 years. the turnover makes it difficult in unions to grab any foothold especially with the labor laws now on the books. i'd suggest a first step would be for the dems to speak out in favor of reforming taft hartley to at least create an even playing field.

american hawk

john murtha comes from a blue collar district, about as blue collar as you can get. he'll win reelection easily. by the way, he is a retired combat marine, having seen fighting in korea and vietnam. once a marine, always a marine, but you wouldn't know about that, would you?

I always wonder why Kevin asks us questions at the ends of his posts, when it is abundantly clear that he rarely bothers to read the comments (replies).

I think he just likes to rattle our cages, frankly.

Hopeless. Unions will never approach where they were 50 years ago.

The democrats are principally a party of interest groups. If they keep enough of them together, they can win a close national election.

For the democrats to ever do better that about 50%, they will need to change philosophies to connect with working people, i.e., become more conservative. I don't think it is going to happen, at least the current trend is the opposite direction.

I think it is the country's loss that liberals do not join the military, at least to serve a single tour.

Who says they don't? Who says that the experience of warfare doesn't shape their views in impossible to predict ways?

There is a reason besides youthful vigor that the army is made up mostly of very young men. They're too young to have a seasoned, sophisticated view of the world, and they're susceptible to whatever fairytales the gov't may tell them.

But, to take one good example, Pat Tillman was no conservative. He was a patriot, and he wasn't fooled by Bush's bullshit.

As a former member of the Teamsters (Local 886 in Oklahoma) the decline in union membership can be attributed to three main reasons (although there are numerous smaller ones that contribute also). Those three are 1) globalization 2) roll back of previous labor laws and/or lack of inforcement of ones still on the books and 3) a combination of pushback by corporations and thier lawyers to undermine the union members faith in thier unions management and ineptness of union leadership (divide and conquer strategy). The loss of high valued manufacturing jobs to globalization has resulted in lowering the traditional pool of union-based jobs in the U.S.(automobile, steel, manufacturing of durable goods,etc.). Unions have been forced to scramble in an often futile attempt to organize non-traditional areas of workers (state, local, public service sectors, etc.) to keep their union membership up and to stay economically viable. In these areas city, state, and federal laws are often on the books curtailing what tactics a union can use to secure or re-negotiate contracts. Several states have enacted what are known as "Right to Work" laws (read--right to work for less laws) that do nothing more than undermine the unions ability to achieve strenght through numbers by allowing employees the "option" of not joining the union but still force the unions to represent them in labor disputes with management at no expense to the individual employee. A lot of current laws governing the conduct of safety oversight and employee rights have either been diminished or simply not enforced as written (the recent coal mine tragedies come to mind among others). In Oklahoma, for instance, two of the United States largest grocery wholesalers (w/union shops--Fleming's (1) and Scrivners (3) respectfully) were either forced to sell off to competitors or went bankrupt as Walmart moved into the grocery industry in Oklahoma. These were NATIONWIDE companies that no longer exist today due to 1) cheap inports by Walmart 9and the like) and 2) lower wages paid by Walmart (who would rather close anyone of its stores to keep from allowing its employees to unionize). Other major companies (airlines, automobile, etc.) are reducing wages, health benefits, and retirement plans. Major corporations and companys have long dispised having to work with unions but in the last twenty to thirty years the rapid decline of unions and thier membership has been hastened by the rapid globalization and the availablity of an international pool of workers. Money quides politics and it is no different in the corporate world. I once witnessed the company I worked for spend several thousands of dollars in attorney fees ($90,000)to keep from paying a co-worker 6 hours of overtime he was due by contract AND THEN brag they would do it as often as it took to make thier point. I fear there will come a day when unions are relagated to the dustbin of history. And before any in the corporate world shout Amen! with glee too soon they need to remember thier history. It was a relatively unknown union at the time in Poland that facillated bringing down the Berlin Wall. As a footnote: also remember--there has been no increase in the minimum wage in over seven years. Just as a rising tide floats all boats, a receding tide can have the reverse effects!

The entire notion of a "working class" (speaking as someone who is very much a product of this group) needs to be retired. That's the sine qua non of repairing the current Democratic inability to reach out to people outside of of highly-educated/highly-impoverished urban centers.

The old 19th-century model of industrial unions that grouped "workers" by trade or by industry output made sense when most laborers (defined as non-professionals) actually worked in a defined industry. Those days are gone and the unions haven't adapted effectively, making them ineffective tools for connecting with the non-professional side of the economy.

Public sector unions are a great example of this problem--anger about government (and, in New England, about rising property taxes) derives substantially from the perceived money-for-nothing of government employees, who are guaranteed wage and benefit increases that are paid for by taxes drawn from people who are losing the very wage and benefit securities that public sector unions provide. That has been the biggest lesson for me as a municipal official--trying to explain to people who are out of work or on fixed incomes or struggling to pay their mortgage that their taxes are going up because the municipal supervisors union won a 4% annual increase in arbitration. Needless to say, people don't like it--and the resentment spills over into their views on Democrats, unions generally and public services. Most people don't feel like part of a "labor movement" they feel exploited by a powerful political interest group.

In my mind, the best way for the Dems to get out of their rut with non-professionals is to stop working for "labor" and to start working for "people"--if that means breaking with unions to reform education, then that's what we need to do. If it means siding with corporate interests to get support for universal health care, then that's what we need to do. But relying on "labor" as a proxy for the "working class" is both inherently elitest and completely out of step with the ambitions and attitudes of the majority of Americans.

There is a whole line of thinking in labor economics that recognizes unions as providing value to management in exactly the way that you described.

Traditional labor models demonstrate that the union will be choosing between more workers or higher wages, all things being equal.

Under labor-management models of union representation the union acts as a conduit of information to management and provides value to the company. Management, in turn, may defer some decisions to the union.

Kaiser is one example of a company that exercises this model. When Kaiser management decided to shut down an optics laboratory east of San Francisco, labor balked. Management proposed to labor that if they could come up with a way of profitably retaining the labor they could do so - and they did, ultimately expanding their operation into a new nitch market and actually growing it.

So there are models like that floating around in economics.

I don't understand a) and b) though. If the labor movement were just one guy you could still give him a seat at the table.

Corporate America culls staffers from Senators. Senators hire people with corporate ambitions. You could easily circulate labor representatives in and out of Washington in the same way.

Kevin,

Maybe the people you're talking about don't like being defined as "the working class, broadly defined." I know it would bug me.

It has nothing to do with unions other than the fact that unions used to be good at getting out the vote.

A long time ago, all the Democratic Party talked about was working people. They didn't talk about minorities, women, peace, liberalism, voting reform, campaign finance reform, the environment, homosexuals, et al. They talked about men earning enough money to support a family. Everything--minimum wage, social security, welfare, Medicare, Medicaid--was to help men support their families through good times and bad.

We don't talk about that any more. We talk about peace and the environment and fairness. If you want workers and their families to vote for you, then you have to be on their side all the time or at least pretend that you are.

If we focused on workers, we would be promising health insurance, free daycare, and cheaper gasoline. We would mock Republicans all day long because working people understand sticking it to The Man. We would find a way of saying that Democrats will make your life better in the near future and Republicans will make your life worse in the near future.

As a college educated employer of 25 people (22 of which are "working class), I found the '04 election extremely revealing. I did my own straw poll as the election day neared and began to feel more and more uneasy. Kerry was not doing very well among two of my working class employees both of which LOVED Bill Clinton and would have voted for him in a heartbeat. They voted for Bush. Why? I believe Southern Democrats are able to speak to the working class in ways that Northern liberals can't. I really believe John Edwards would have been a more formidable candidate than Kerry. He was catching fire in all the primaries where people could hear him, while Kerry was more the creature of the Democrat power brokers. Jacob Weisberg wrote about that during the election in Slate. One of the key themes is Fairness, playing by the rules, etc. Given that I'm surprised that Democrats aren't pounding away at that with Iraq, like Jack Murtha has been doing.

My two cents on the "we need more liberals in the military" comments. It has always struck me as dangerous to have the class of people trained to shoot guns, beat folks down, and blow shit up as sharply politically skewed as it now is. As a former Teamster (Local 1149, beer truck driver, mid-to-late '70's), I knew a lot of right-leaning vets who could kick some serious ass if push came to shove. I thought it would be a good thing if more of the rest of us had those skills.

Yesterday I had a party for a bunch of local liberal bloggers

Cabal!!!! Drumola! Conspiracy!!!!

Why do you think Nixon opened up trade with China?

Despite the fact that China is a communist country, and is becoming more and more a military superpower, and a threat to US hegemony?

China's vast supply of cheap labor - this move was designed to undermine unions in the US. Neocons don't care WHERE they are obnoxiously wealthy. They can create paradise on their own estates, or in their own private jets, any time they want.

I was born in Detroit, left the city when my folks joined the great white flight after the '67 riots, and lived in SE Michigan until the mid-'80's. Toward the end of that period, I remember the UAW was forever joining with the Big Three to fighting against imported cars. It always seemed like a rear-guard action, and worse, it always seemed to pit working-class Americans against working-class Asians. During this same period, there were some especially brutal crackdowns on workers in the Korean auto industry, but I'm not aware of any UAW effort, even a token one, to helpe them.

Ever since, I've wondered, is it really in the long-term interests of working people to stick with strictly national unions? After all, capital is increasingly indifferent to borders. I realize that genuinely international labor organizing will be incredibly difficult. But are the hurdles so large that it's a complete pipe dream?

I was reading a book written in 1932, surveying the national political landscape (I believe the title was "What We Are About To Receive") and the author decried exactly what you did: the feeble private-sector unions and the distance between the Democratic politicians and working class. Your complaints are perennial. All the pieces were there for a political revolution in 1932, but it still didn't work yet.

The key was finding the right political coalition - for the New Deal, a good working relationship between the Southern Democrats and the Northern Democrats, folks who were usually at cross-purposes. It's amazing that relationship was established, only four years after Al Smith's divisive run for the Presidency, but in the shadow of the Great Depression, FDR made it stick.

Something different may work for our times. Breaking the Republican Party in the American West may suffice for now.

Our nations success has rested on the principles of , the balance of power ,compromise and freedom of the press . The first two are dead in the water , if press is compromised ; seen any union leaders on Sunday morning TV lately ?

Strong unions are vital to controlling the excesses of big business . Union leadership compromised its power throughout the 80’s and 90’s by taking finger in the dike positions which undermined its current power .

When unions leaders let Reagan get away with firing the Air Traffic Controllers and the AFL-CIO formed a partnership with the Reagan Administration under the U.S. Government’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) program , they became , in effect , a eunuch in a whorehouse – only capable of serving some of the wishes of others with no chance of successful propagation .

The only way unions regain strength is by becoming relevant to the lives of the working masses , that requires ethical and single-mindedness of purpose , in the tradition of Walter Reuther and like today’s TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint .

I just want to point out that Kevin's question is a bit of a red herring: there's nothing about today's economy that makes union organizing "a hopeless task." Remember that in the late 1920's and early 1930's, private sector union density was about where it is today. And today there are numerous industries (retail trade, hotels & casinos, wholesale trade, fast food) which are dominated by a few large employers, which primarily employ people in occupations for which little or no formal education is required, and which face no international competition. That doesn't mean organizing them is easy, but the difficulties are in no way a function of "the realities of the modern economy" whatever exactly that's supposed to mean.

And by the by, when working class americans who don't have a union are asked if they would join one, about 43% say "Yes." Since around 12% of workers (overall) have a union, that certainly suggests that a majority of of working class Americans do not hate unions (or, even if they do, would want one anyway). See here: http://www.aflcio.org/mediacenter/resources/1999labordaypoll.cfm
Hart has updated this polling more recently, but I can't find a link.

Osama_Been_Forgotten: Why do you think Nixon opened up trade with China?

A few days back you blamed W for the current China fiasco, and now Nixon. You're overlooking the biggest perpetrator of them all: Clinton. He's the one who pushed hard for both PNTR and WTO membership for China.

Combine that with NAFTA, and you've got some pretty good reasons why "labor" ain't so hot for the Democrats anymore.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Richard Daley Sr. wasn't exactly a Harvard-educated millionare neither was Tom Pendergast, John Bailey, Meade Esposito, Carmine DeSapio, David Lawrence, Soapy Williams or any of Southern Democratic Burbons leaders. Don't forget these political bosses ran the party too.

What the Democrats have struggled with since 1980 is the transition form being a industrial-based party to a service-based party. It hasn't been easy and still has yet to play itself out.

thump: I see this as another reason we should be working for publicly funded elections along the lines of those in AZ, ME, CT.

You've got that right. Democrats used to be heavily funded by unions. As good little whores though, they've moved on to what are now better paying johns (admittedly it's impossible to be a federal politician without being a whore).

With publicly funded elections politicians would have to "pander to the voters", which is an interesting phrase to describe how a democracy is supposed to work.

Religion, dude.

The Democratic Party seems out of touch with the religious beliefs of the working class.

And there is some relationship between religion and union membership.

I think the relationship of unions vs. individualism must be in a cycle, and it's about to turn towards a collective again.

While it's indeed true as someone else pointed out, that the middle/lower-class sees unions as a bunch of fat cats who exploit them for their own good, it's not at all unlike what you see in upper-middle-class jobs where individuals fear collective bargaining agreements, as if it might mean that you can't negotiate a higher wage for yourself.

But employers are sure figuring this out now, and I see some pretty blatant exploits of manpower currently going on because pressure is applied to the weak individual. Overtime without compensation, insane work schedules and just about everything is happening as the employer wants it to.

In egregious cases, the backlash hits the employer, and hard. One case was "EA_Spouse", a wife if an employee at Electronic Arts, the video game maker. She did a blog entry on her husband's insane working conditions at Electronic Arts. His case was overtime without compensation, insane demands on 7-day work weeks at 18 hours/day, ridiculous schedules, etc - and it resonated with so many people who commented and blogged it that EA changed their policies on overtime and scheduling at great cost.

So maybe the future isn't unions, but instead a framework for these ad hoc collective actions against an employer...and maybe the global community of the internet is that framework?

And if we want a union-structure, maybe we should find and show examples such as EA_Spouse as examples of where people working together are stronger than people working alone.

You're overlooking the biggest perpetrator of them all: Clinton. He's the one who pushed hard for both PNTR and WTO membership for China.
Combine that with NAFTA, and you've got some pretty good reasons why "labor" ain't so hot for the Democrats anymore.
Posted by: alex on June 26, 2006 at 4:46 PM | PERMALINK

Clinton was also a huge offendor, and is at least as responsible for the decline of the Democratic Party's popularity among the working class Americans as any. And he wasn't even a Democrat.

The countries that have decimated America's industrial sector also have unions, especially Japan. So the loss of competitiveness wasn't do to the unions, per se, but perhaps their structure.

The Republican's would have you think that the unions are at fault for the loss of the industrial base. But this is simply not true. Ford and GM are on the ropes, but Toyota, Honda and Nissan all have unions over in Japan. In fact all big companies over in Japan have unions. In fact most big companies in Japan have near universal tennure for their workers. This means that Company managment has a bias towards worker interest.

In both coutries, shareholder interest is supposed to prevail, with a Board of directors overseeing management. However, in the united States, the BoD is a proxy to Management more than the Shareholders. In Japan, the BoD is a proxy more to the workers. As it turns out, when comparing the US and Japan, worker's are a better proxy to shareholder interest than America's board of directors. Both (long term) shareholders and (long term) workers want the same thing consistent growth, profitability and market share and sustainability. In only one are do they differe, merger and consolidation: Shareholders are for it; Workers are against it; As a result of worker bias, there is less consolidation in Japan. But in this respect, the workers interest is a better proxy to society's interest, and remember, Corporations only exist as a result of the public will. Both workers and society would be against mergers and consolidation becase mergers dilute competitiveness and choice for consumers.

The Japanese model differs from the U.S. in that each large publically traded company has a company union. This enhances competitiveness while preserving SOME bargaining power for workers.

In any competitive sphere, when you consistently lose, you adopt your competitors strategy. However, when it comes to unions and internation competition the U.S. has avoided implementing Japanese style institutional arrangements. Why? Well first most of us don't understand them, and second, the Corporate bigwigs don't want to lose power and money to workers (in Japan executives make a fraction of what their counterparts in the US make.)

Japan's social system is the best in the world. Their distribution of income is amongst the broadest in the first world, exceeding even that as Sweden.

I am not sure how this helps the Democratic party. Because of party politics in the U.S. we developed industry unions, which gave the workers more power, but undermined the competitiveness of our industrial sectors, allowing conservatives to cast blame upon workers for a lack of competitiveness even as they gave themselve greater and greater wages. Remember, what you earn is a function of your bargaining power, not your productivity. Workers have lost it, while executives have gotten more of it, all at the expense of stockholders.

I think that Mazurka has a good point. I don't think that people are against unions but maybe are distrusting of the "corporate like" that run them. I am the working class!! I work for a company that has made their business in a right to work state. Here, the only place you can work where there is a union, is the Federal gov.
I think that people have givin up on our gov. because they feel they can't make a change. People feel their vote doesn't count because of the electorial college, lieing pols,and corporate rulers who make our lives miserable. Maybe we are just waiting for all the chips to fall so we can start over. Government officials have no interest in the people. Their interests are in themselves. We all know this it's not news.

Liberalism used to be a politics of economy. Today it is a politics of culture.

From a structural and strategic perspective for Democrats, I would point them at the Swedish model. Its not Urban Worker Interest but Rural Interest that need to be paid attention too.

In the book "Anatomy of Fascism" R. Paxton also notes the anatomy of Swedish liberalism.

In Sweden, the ruling liberal establishment is the result of a long held strategic alliance between rural interest and urban worker interest. And in the case of Sweden this aligned consituency has proved formidable and immensely stable.

Now consider this in the U.S. context. It is quite obvious that the Democrats have sown up Urban interest, including working class workers in urban core. But obviously, that isn't enough to win elections. And in states where considerable rural and exurbian intersts exist along side urban interest, the states themselves swing.

That means that rural interest are the tipping point in the U.S. much like they are in Sweden - more so here because we are gerrymandered to favor rural interest - the entire intermountain and great plans (sans texas and oklahoma) has a population less than the North East yet provides more electoral votes, and senators then the North East).

In fact Rural interest are the tipping point all over the place. In "The coming of the Third Reich" by Richard Evans, he notes that the Nazi's did particularly well in gaining votes from rural districs in the run up to Nazi rule. In the U.S. rural districs have performed the same service to Neocon interest, creating a similar effect.

The Dems, then, need to form a wedge to drive into the rural interests. Such a wedge currently exist within the usue of Energy production. The repubicans are locked into the petroleum industry complex and can't leave therefore they can't be flexible on Energy. This means that key petroleum states like Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas would be hard to crack. Additionally, Republicans are likely to remain the party of resentment and so will continue to hold Southern states that still harbor resentment as a hold over from the civil war and civil rights eras. But that leaves much o the Northern rural Corn belt and intermountain regions that lack this history, as potential low hanging fruit for Democratic strategist if they pursue an energy strategy to crack a wedge into the Republican hold on rural interest.

Much of our energy problems can be addressed by advancing rural interest, especially in middle America.

There are three prominent areas where rural America could be providing urban America with the energy it needs: Biomass (energy grown on farms), Synthetic fuels (energy extracted from coal in the northern great plains states) and Nuclear Electricity generation (engineers have developed safe ways to produce nuclear energy without the threat of a melt down and the French have developed methods where the wast products half life is only 275 years, as appossed to 45,000 we waist now). Much of the rest of our Energy needs can come from Canada and domestic production freeing us and our international policy apparatus from dependency from unstable-istan countries.

Energy then can become a metaphore for the new Democratic alignment between Urban worker's interest and Rural Interest - the rural areas provide the energy to run the urban factories and both providing votes to Dems.

All that money flowing to OPEC could be flowing to our great rural belt. Saving American's lives and making Rural America as prosperous as it has ever been.

Since the GOP is locked into the Petroleum interest, they can not offer these deals to Rural America. Dems can and should.

This does not mean that they should abandoned workers interest. Instead they should champion both - a la the Swedish model.

Advocate for Company unions ala Japan. Make it a rule: All large publicly owned corporations should have collective bargaining units.

It's only fair that a collective ownership should have to bargain with collective labor. As shown in Japan, workers are better proxy's for shareholders than our Board of Directors. And Japanese Companies are still the most competitive in the world.

This is a strategy that can't fail.

As early as possible, the Dems need to run Schwietzer (gov of Montana, and advocate for synthetic fuels) for President. He will take with him much of the Upper Great Plains and Much of the internmountain states (North Dakota, Mountana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and when Cheney is dead and gone, Wyoming). A little later, South Dakota will follow. This new alignment could eventually bring with it some southern states like Arkansas and the near northern states like Kentucky and Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina all of which are positioned to provide energy to the north.

Domestic Energy production is a patriotic issue.

Not very long from now, environmental concerns impelled by punishing Hurricanes could bring the deep south, especially Florida and Louisiana.

So the alignment of urban with rural, by way of energy production tied into concerns over geopolitics of oil and the Middle East and environmental concerns could ultimately leave the republicans with nothing but Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Utah and Idaho.

In Sweden, this alignment has created a stable liberal society. Perhaps its not so coincedental that Liberal Europe's most expensive policy is its Agricultural subsidies. Let us not forget what the loss of the rural interest did in Germany in the 1930s.

I think we know our way forward out of this mess. Now lets get to work on it.

I think the problem is that today's "younger" workers got sold out by a lot of unions who agreed to two-tier wage systems, selling out future workers and setting up their ire.

Working-class who are knee-jerk anti-union are non-thinking, Rush-listening, propaganda-believing know-nothings who probably think that their lives are more threatened by gay marriage than by failure to increase the minimum wage.

You can't convince them of the power of collective bargaining because their heads are of stone and they totally identify with their slave masters. When they DO get in a union job, do they complain about their higher wages and health benefits? No, they complain about being forced to pay their "dues."

Like so many Americans, they want something (protection) for nothing. Let "somebody else" pay union dues.

The Greatest Generation knew something about sacrafice and going without a little something to provide for the better good. They paid their union dues gratefully, and were rewarded with job security, good wages, good benefits, and even good retirement.

Oh, no. We don't want that. We want to work at WalMart and have the fruits of our labor accrue to Sam Walton's greedy relatives. THAT's the American Way!

From a structural and strategic perspective for Democrats, I would point them at the Swedish model. Its not Urban Worker Interest but Rural Interest that need to be paid attention too.

In the book "Anatomy of Fascism" R. Paxton also notes the anatomy of Swedish liberalism.

It is a long held strategic alliance between rural interest and urban worker interest. And in the case of Sweden this aligned consituency has proved formidable.

Now consider this in the U.S. context. It is quite obvious that the Democrats have sown up Urban interest, including working class workers in urban core. But obviously, that isn't enough to win elections. And in states with considerable rural and exurbian intersts exist along side urban interest, the states themselves swing.

That means that rural interest are the tipping point in the U.S. much like they are in Sweden. In fact they are the tipping point all over the place. In "The coming of the Third Reich" by Richard Evans, he notes that the Nazi's did particularly well in gaining votes from rural districs in the run up to Nazi rule. In the U.S. rural districs have performed the same service to Neocon interest, creating a similar effect.

The Dems, then, need to form a wedge to drive into the rural interests. Such a wedge currently exist within the usue of Energy production. The repubicans are locked into the petroleum industry complex and can't leave therefore they can't be flexible on Energy. But much of our energy problems can be addressed by advancing rural interest, especially in middle America.

There are three prominent areas where rural America could be providing urban America with the energy it needs: Biomass (energy grown on farms), Synthetic fuels (energy extracted from coal in the northern great plains states) and Nuclear Electricity generation (engineers have developed safe ways to produce nuclear energy without the threat of a melt down and the French have developed methods where the wast products half life is only 275 years, as appossed to 45,000 we waist now).

Energy then can become a metaphore for the new Democratic alignment between Urban worker's interest and Rural Interest - the rural areas provide the energy to run the urban factories and both providing votes to Dems.

All that money flowing to OPEC could be flowing to our great rural belt. Saving American's lives and making Rural America as prosperous as it has ever been.

Since the GOP is locked into the Petroleum interest, they can not offer these deals to Rural America. Dems can and should.

This does not mean that they should abandoned workers interest. Instead they should champion both.

Advocate for Company unions ala Japan. Make it a rule: All large publicly owned corporations should have collective bargaining units. It's only fair that a collective ownership should have to bargain with collective labor. As shown in Japan, workers are better proxy's for shareholders than our Board of Directors. And Japanese Companies are still the most competitive in the world.

This is a strategy that can't fail.

As early as possible, the Dems need to run Schwietzer (gov of Montana, and advocate for synthetic fuels) for President. He will take with him much of the Upper Great Plains and Much of the internmountain states (North Dakota, Mountana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and when Cheney is dead and gone, Wyoming). A little later, South Dakota will follow. This new alignment could eventually bring with it some southern states like Arkansas and the near northern states like Kentucky and Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina all of which are positioned to provide energy to the north.

Domestic Energy production is a patriotic issue.

Not very long from now, environmental concerns impelled by punishing Hurricanes could bring the deep south.

So the alignment of urban with rural, by way of energy production tied into concerns over geopolitics of oil and the Middle East and environmental concerns could ultimately leave the republicans with nothing but Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Utah and Idaho.

In Sweden, this alignment has created a stable liberal society. Perhaps its not so coincedental that Liberal Europe's most expensive policy is its Agricultural subsidies. Let us not forget, the loss of the rural interest did in Germany.

I think we know our way forward out of this mess. Now lets get to work on it.

Jeebus! I say we chip in and get Bubbles a Volvo!
Hell, let's get 'im two Volvos!

Skoal!

I don't think that it's that ideas and feedback aren't bubbling up to Democratic elites. Certainly the lower and middle classes did better under the Clinton administration than they have in the last five years.

I think it's that, if you take away the union, there really isn't that much difference between the white, working class male of Pittsburgh or New Jersey and the one in South Carolina. And as unions fade away, the residual attitudes and influences fade away, too.

Growing up in the non-union Protestant South, it's been interesting to get a view into my husband's world of growing up in a Catholic, union town in Massachussetts. The picture he's given me of life back in the early Sixties was: Your world was divided up into your parish, whether it was the Polish Catholic parish, the Italian, the Irish, or whatever. It was also divided up by your ward, and finally, your union precinct. And in each of these cases, your local leader interacted with the higher level ones and came back and told you who "your guy" was and who to vote for.

In essence, the private sector unions served as the Democratic Party's election machines. As the unions have died, the Democratic Party no longer has the local, personal and group loyalties it can use to mobilize the vote.

I agree with some of the other posters: the unions will never come back. The Democrats will have to get out there and build their own machine, just as the Republicans have. I'm not very up to speed on it, but I suspect this is what Howard Dean is proposing with his fifty-state plan.

Unions are, unfortunately, passe...even though they gave Americans just about every social perk we now take for granted...this country has endured roughly 25 years of official bludgeoning of the union movement(and union leadership has been at least as clueless as the present leadership of the DNC) to the point where it's almost unpatriotic to be pro-Union...until we read about Wal-Mart's policies.

But the minimum wage, portability/availability of health care, affordable housing, "free" trade with standards, the "birth tax", real "social" security and affordable college loan programs are among a host of issues that are dear to the working class and need to be emphasized again and again...

There will be a countervailing power in society...it's up to the Democratic Party to decide whether they, or some other entity, takes up that role. At the moment, they seem unsuited to the task.

You would simply have to make it illegal to employ somebody who's not in a union.

Let's look for a minute at what Labor did wrong when they had their day in the sun.

They collaborated with the CIA in discouraging foreign labor unions, except for a few like the Venezuelan oil workers who propped up corrupt oligarchies.

They lobbied for benefits in contracts, instead of insisting on universal health care, unemployment insurance and retraining benefits, and a meaningful minimum wage.

They became corrupt partners of corrupt big-city regimes, and a major part of the problem when non-whites and women wanted to enter the workforce.

They collaborate with management schemes that let a few overtime hogs wrack up paychecks the average guy can't understand- a major PR disaster.

Today we're living in the fallout from all of this- cheap imports from overseas slave labor, a lack of public programs that support a public economy, and labor support for Dems that is heavily grounded in the military-industrial complex.

Bloggers, by and large reasonably affluent, are no more perceptive than anyone else about this. Too few of them realize that you need not ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Unions are, unfortunately, passe...even though they gave Americans just about every social perk we now take for granted...this country has endured roughly 25 years of official bludgeoning of the union movement(and union leadership has been at least as clueless as the present leadership of the DNC) to the point where it's almost unpatriotic to be pro-Union...until we read about Wal-Mart's policies.

But the minimum wage, portability/availability of health care, affordable housing, "free" trade with standards, the "birth tax", real "social" security and affordable college loan programs are among a host of issues that are dear to the working class and need to be emphasized again and again...

There will be a countervailing power in society...it's up to the Democratic Party to decide whether they, or some other entity, takes up that role. At the moment, they seem unsuited to the task.

Yep, Unions aren't sexy to intelligentsia.
Holy Hell, I hope it wasn't crazy humid for your party like it was and is today in San Diego.

One of the big problems the Dems have was signing on to the Drug Wars.

Student aid? Forget that, if you've been arrested.

Public housing? Forget that, if you've been arrested.

Job protection? Sure, if you pass the drug test.

Want to vote? Can't, if you were convicted.

And, pretty much, the discriminatory enforcement of drug laws has erased the benefits of ending segregation.

Naturally,