First, I have known Sam for many years. Not only is he a good guy but he is one of the best thinkers on labor and economic issues around and he combines this with an admirable activism, rooted in his many years with the CAW. I always wish I was more like him. Another thing too--if you ask him for a favor, like say writing a blurb, he just does it. I had an academic bozo from NYC, for whom I have done more favors than I can say, tell me he didn't do blurbs for people he knew. Sam, on the other hand, is a comrade.
On the issue of class and class consciousness, people might be interested in something I wrote, titled "Can the Working Class Change the World?" This was first given as a talk at the Sacramento Marxist School and then posted on Monthly Review's website. This essay is included in a readings book used in many political science classes. Anyway, yo can read it at http://www.monthlyreview.org/0304yates.htm.
Sam is right about class, as right as anyone can be. I don't know that there is any contradiction what he says and what Zizek says.
Michael Yates