Is Labor Dying, Or Being Born?

摘要

There's this guy you should know. his name is andy Stern and he runs the largest and fastest-growing labor union in the United States. If this were 25 or 50 or 100 years ago, you would surely recognize a labor chieftain like Stern, but today you probably do not. Only two major news organizations- The New York Times and the AP― have full-time labor reporters, and two others have part-time coverage. For the media, labor is an afterthought- a dying animal. With only 8.2 percent of the private-sector work force still enrolled in unions, why bother to keep track of a bright former social worker like Andy Stern? Two reasons. First, his union, the 1.6 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), jolted the political world last week by joining with the biggest union of government workers (AFSCME) to endorse Howard Dean. (The communication workers' and teachers' unions will soon follow.) This may be seen in retrospect as a key moment in the Democratic contest and perhaps even the fall campaign. Second, Stern's approach―clean, idealistic, grassroots organizing to bring in new members and voters―may be the only hope for saving not just the Democratic Party but the American labor movement.