1. AFL-CIO silence about team concept in the 80s 2. Facing down of all rank and file challenges in both the US and abroad (Nicaragua, El Salvador) 3. Militance only when necessary to get union recognized; then settles down into labor management cooperation 4. absurd praise and respect bestowed upon successful American capitalists 5. false hope that the firms can stay on the high road despite pressures of financial markets (i would also add that high road of high wages is a hollow victory if workers are being worked to death through the intensification of production; elsewhere Slaughter and Parker have shown drastic reductions in downtime). 6. detailed criticism of the Kaiser agreement:
despite low wages, contracting out of care, elimination of services, closing of hospitals, shifting of work to non licensed employees, medical redlining, etc. the union decided to promote Kaiser in part by agreeing not to protest hosptial closings (don't see how you speak to her criticism). 7. counsel against use of the radical language of worker solidarity 8. overemphasis on numbers as workers may organized in structureless, albeit dues paying, unions and present members are sacrificed 9. acquiesence in reengieerning, speedup , deskilling, quality circles that filch job knowledge, rigid standaridization, increased contracting out, use of part imers and temporaries, long an dnon standard hours, computer monitoring, temas, just-in-time schedules--that is the lean workplace. (that is, you can count as victories the ceding of worker control for rights to organize because you are not judging unions by their improvements in exactly those areas that have been ceded to management--so it seems to me that your post is non-responsive to her criticism). 10. political victory hollow since Gore pushes the WTO, guts welfare, and seeks to privatize social security.
Yours, Rakesh