Tuesday, May 31, 2005

More on Democratic reconstruction

Whatever the Democrats decide to do to counter the Republican movement, without Organized Labor it will have a really difficult time coming back and defeating the Republicans. So this story of the internal strife in labor is extremely important to Democrats and Progressives.

The American Prospect provides a good description of Labor's Civil War. Essentially is seems to come down to the disagreements between the wealthy unions and the poor ones regarding whether resources should be spent on political efforts to improve the climate for labor, or whether those resources need to be spent on massive organizing efforts to try to do things like organizing Wal-Mart.

Personally I tend to lean towards the organizing focus, but the Republicans have done such a great job of creating a political climate that is anti-union such an organizing effort is going to have real problems. Do you focus first on stregthening unions themselves, or do you focus on political activity that makes the political environment more hospitible to union activity?

Read the article and see if you agree with me.

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