On welfare reform, the unions were slow and waffly -- most unions did not even see how workfare would threaten their jobs (NYC transit workers leader, now under indictment I believe, actually allowed workfare slaves to take over union jobs as long as they were brought in by attrition rather than firing!) but if they saw anything, the threat to themselves was the only thing they saw. There was NO solidarity with the poor, with single mothers, with poor children. No vision of a broader social-welfare state.
Internally, of course, unions are extremely undemocratic, and far from building solidarity and workers' power, they weaken both by agreeing to contracts that ban sympathy and wildcat strikes, provide for two-tier wage structures etc. Even now, with membership in freefall (the AFL would have to organize 800,000 new workers a year to get ahead of the declines caused by economic changes), they don't put into organizing the money they put into... real estate, public relations, huge salaries for union officials etc. Only a few ADFL unions really back the (theoretically) aggressive Sweeney program of putting resources into organizing-- the rest are just waiting for him to go away.
Recently Sweeney backed Gore, came out in support of WTO. I think it's really hard to look at what's actually happening with organized labor and find much that is inspiring.
Katha