Solidarity Forever? - by weldon berger, BTC News
The bottom line is that no matter the corruption and incompetence and inefficiencies that sometimes bedevil unions, every advance in the rights of workers has been good for this country. We need a strong middle class, and unions have been the springboard out of poverty and into if not affluence, at least security. Union insistence on decent working conditions and environmental protections has been the driving force behind many of the protections working Americans enjoy whether or not they're unionized; for every former hippie and Nader disciple in the environmental movement there's a steelworker or a meatpacker who has had just as much of an impact, whose demands for a safer environment inside the plant have helped create a safer one outside it as well.
Those are the people Democrats need to support, and if a few Democratic politicians lose their jobs and the swanky benefits that come with those jobs because Andy Stern is busy helping less well-paid workers keep their jobs and get benefits amounting to a fraction of what Congresscritters get, well, tough.