one big union

there are those who argue, and i am inclined to agree, that organized labor's real troubles began when they were officially recognized in 1935 when fdr signed the wagner act and the venue for expression for worker discontent was removed from the street, sit down strike, and picket line and dropped into the realm of legislation, courts, and injunctions where it has been pummeled by the agents of a reactionary elite determined to retain its economic and political advantage ever since...the issues widened in the post world war two era when unions bought into the social contract that gave workers a continuously rising standard of living in return for staying out of politics AS WORKERS, and instead relying on mostly the democrats for their "seat at the table'...as the post-war economic dominance of the united states faded the elites began to roll back the economic perks of the contract and, unfortunately for labor, they discovered too late that the democrats were actually the liberal wing of the ruling elite and that their liberalism ended when the pipeline of wealth was threatened...labor bet on a false ally...as labor's political influence eroded the leadership continued to focus on parochial issues of economic, as opposed to political, gain for its membership...mostly because the unions had become businesses...contratcs-r-us...dispensing industrial peace in contract sized bites...this this focus on money created a unionized economic elite disconnected from the problems of the balance of workers...the "official" labor movement had become a small scale ( compared with corporate interests ) special interest group lobbying legislatures for its membership and not the "workers" it claimed to represent...isolated by its small size and its distance form public good will it has been subjected to increasing attack and constriction of the rules governing how it can operate...today the whores and slumlords in indianapolis passed a "right to work" law in an effort to put the final nail in organized labor's coffin..okay...it wasn't doing much good anyway...perhaps now workers will begin to realize the need to participate in politics as WORKERS rather than relying on an inadequate and unreliable proxy...tear it down and we can rebuild a mass movement and reclaim some turf from the grassroots up.