Thanks for everyone’s comments. I also received many others via email. Here’s a selection (I’m only using initials assuming that if they wrote to me privately, they might not want their names publicly used since a number of people who wrote hold down senior labor positions):

DS wrote:

Have you been watching the International Unions, SEIU & group rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic?…They apparently are not willing to go “balls to wall” for Labor Law Reform.

In my humble opinion the only way the labor movement will ever rebuild itself and the middle class is to radically reform this nations labor laws. Our movement made its greatest strides in the years from 1935 to 1947 when Taft Hartley was passed which crippled us and sent a powerful message to employers that labor had a choke chain on it. In 1959 Landrum-Griffin put additional restrictions on us. The federal courts have issued anti-labor decisions for decades and there has been virtually no penalties for the most blatant labor law violators.

The AFL-CIO should organize an all out campaign where ALL of labor and our allies such as church, community, and college students hit streets and force local, state and federal elected officials to pay attention to the crisis facing workers and the future of this nation.

I sincerely believe that nothing short of civil disobedience will get this nations attention on this crisis. Our Nation has regressed back to country of “robber barons” and the poor. Bush is unraveling the remaining threads of the New Deal and the Labor Movement is having a “family feud”.

I agree with you that we stop funding politicians that take our money and screw us as soon as they are sworn in, but spending that money on organizing under the current laws is also an excercise in futility.”

PG wrote:

I hate to admit that you might be right.

MG wrote:

Your column is interesting but you demonstrate a gross misinformation about the role of politics and its impact on collective bargaining and organizing. You seem focused on presidential politics without realizing the impact of political action at other levels….he equation is simple: where labor has density, we have power. Those places are called Blue States. Where we are losing density, we are challenged. Those places are called Battleground States. Where we have lost density, labor is marginalized. Those places are called Red States. We dare not sit out campaigns this year in La/NYC/New Jersey and Va.

These elections will be springboards to 2006 where we must put steel into the backbone of red-state Dem Senators. We only have a six vote filibuster margin in the Senate. To sit on the sidelines for the next two years would be irresponsible and leave the field open to our enemies. Such an decision is suicidial.