July 26, 2005
Labor Splits
I don't know a whole lot about the recent labor difficulties, but this seems promising:
The last labor split, 70 years ago, led to a frenetic era of competitive organizing. When the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged in 1955, some 33% of American workers belonged to unions; that has dropped to 12.5%.
This move may interfere with left-wing organizing in 2006 (Which would be bad!) but I have hopes that it's going to energize things for 2008 and beyond. Rose Ann DeMoro lists the underlying core issues this brouhaha isn't addressing, and Nathan Newman posits that the split may not actually hurt Democratic organizing because labor politicking has never been that unified. Read more at House of Labor on TPMCafe.com.
Posted by ben at July 26, 2005 07:18 AM