> Eric says unions are anachronistic. I
> don't understand this. Can you explain
> what you mean? It might be that new
> forms of workers' organization are needed.
> Maybe we can call thme something else.
> But don't workers need some collective way
> to fight employers as much as they ever
> did? They need more too, I'll grant you.
Looking at things from the point of view of the left in general, it seems to me that fostering the political struggle (at the expense of the direct economic struggle) is more cost-effective approach for working-class interest in the U.S. That's been the case in other countries. I don't mean to say that transforming the unions in the U.S. is not necessary. I'm just saying that facing that task directly and immediately may be a bit too uphill.
In Venezuela, many unions have remained on the wrong side of the political divide until now. Some of them started to change after the PdVSA strike failed. In Mexico, most of the political advance of the left has been accomplished bypassing the unions. Over decades, there were many carefully-planned attempts to infiltrate the unions by different leftist formations. They all failed. The left is still marginal in the union movement in Mexico. But then, since the 1980s, the left focused on the direct political struggle. That worked. And that progress has reacted on the unions, as a catalyst for their self-transformation -- although that's been the case of only a few unions.
IMO, while an internally-driven transformation of the unions, i.e. responding to their own needs, would be nice, this scenario is unlikely in the U.S. More broadly speaking, the needs of workers go beyond those that can be settled through the direct confrontation with their employers (pay, benefits, working conditions). And, in addition, there's interaction between things that happen outside and those inside of the workplace relationship.
For example, a better public safety net can change completely the dynamics of the interaction between bosses and workers -- the bettering of the safety net (e.g. universal health care, even if piece meal, town by town, state by state, etc.) being a direct political goal.
[Note: I haven't read all the postings on this thread. So these thoughts may be redundant.]