One thing that I noticed about the RNC demonstration in NYC which I joined was that many (most?) people seemed to be there by themselves or with small informal groups of friends, rather than in sizable contingents of organizations. That's probably not unique to that demonstration, nor to NYC, though the size of the city may compound it. Even when crowds seem impressive in America, they are usually made up of molecules that only temporarily come together and disperse without having made any lasting connections with event organizers (like UFPJ, ANSWER, etc.) or other people who joined the same events. That's no obstacle when it comes to organizing one-day anti- war events and the like, but it is an obstacle to creating the kind of solidarity necessary to fight effectively on the labor front (which can cost you and be protracted).
The anti-war movement, unfortunately in my view, has not sought to overcome this problem. If anything, there seems to be something approaching consensus among many anti-war activists: concentrate on the Iraq War, don't try to bring in "other issues," so that we can have a broadest possible movement. In my view, that's not necessarily a wrong approach, if that's applied only to this or that demonstration, but one-issue organizing is, ultimately, not only limited in terms of political education, but it probably narrows rather than broadens participation in the anti-war movement, too, after reaching a certain threshold.
That said, the strike did come at a time when NYC loses a lot of activists who do have interest in labor solidarity and may not mind braving cold weather (e.g., out-of-state student activists attending school in NYC). Shortly before Christmas is a difficult time to line up activists of any sort for anything.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>