Quotes about Unions

Don't Mourn--Organize!

The left needs a new paradigm. The collapse of communism and the abandonment by democratic socialists parties of the traditional socialist objective of national ownership of the means of production have deprived the left of the goals it cherished over the two centuries in which it formed and grew to a position of great political power and intellectual influence. But that is not the only reason why the left needs a new paradigm. The trade union movement has been the powerhouse and the treasury of the left in many countries. What capitalists failed to accomplish by a century of repressive measures against trade union leaders, the World Trade Organization, enthusiastically endorsed by social democrat government around the world, is doing for them. When barriers to imports are removed, nationally based trade unions are undermined.