"gboozell at juno.com" wrote:
>
> Undoubtedly the organizing failures are also the result of anti-union
> labor laws which retard and corrupt the process.
>
> I also don't think the "blue collar" identity idea holds up with SEIU, or other unions organizing service sector employees. Many if not most of their membership are women and people of color.
Yes.
And there is a theoretical battle to be fought _within_ the ranks of labor and the left that this second paragraph just touches the edges of. Marx expected that capitalism as it spread and deepened would lead to essentially a two-class society, workers and capitalists. That expectation has been wholly realized in the U.S. at least, where there remains no demographically significant 'middle class' (petty producers, independent professionals, 'family' farmers).
It is nearly impossible to organize workers who don't themselves fully acknowledge that they are workers but rather cling to the illusion that they are members of an illusory middle class. And of course the strength of this illusion, far from being challenged by the left or by working-class militants is in fact constantly reinforced. For instance, all the rantings on this list about the middle class.
Carrol