AFL-CIO Chief to Seek 3rd Term as Labor Ponders Future Nancy Cleeland, Los Angeles Times
Nelson Lichtenstein, a UC Santa Barbara history professor and an authority on the U.S. labor movement, said the debate was long overdue.
American union leadership was 'extraordinarily complacent' from 1950 to 1995, he said. 'At least now people know there's a crisis. It means that wider and wider circles are involved in the discussion, and that's a good thing. This is the kind of debate that took place in the '30s and, to a lesser extent, in the '60s when the United Auto Workers quit over how to get the movement dynamic again.'
However, Lichtenstein added, reforms may not halt the slide. 'Labor could become completely irrelevant,' he said. 'In fact, I think that's already happening.'