Michael Yates quoted Greg Shotwell:
> Concession and compromise to the One Percent is the M.O. of U.S. unions.
Unfortunately not just in the U.S. The most powerful unions in Germany, like the metal trades union IG Metall, are completely wedded to the German export-oriented "beggar thy neighbour" economic model. One of my standard tropes is that even if the Leninist concept of a "labor aristocracy" is problematic, it almost seems like it was made to conceptualize contemporary Germany (and come to think of it, it was probably also Wilhelmine Germany that Lenin was thinking about as well...)
According to this OECD page on union density <http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=UN_DEN>, Germany had a union density in 2008 of 19.1%, while the U.S. had 11.9%,
Meanwhile, France had a paltry 7.6%, but which country's labor movement would you prefer? France's, right? I like the arrangement in the Latin European countries of having different trade union confederations according to political orientation. I'd love to see something like France's SUD/Solidaires or Italy's Cobas in Germany.. Fuck, in truth, I'd be happy to have even the CGT or CGIL.
So union density really tells us nothing about the militancy of any particular working class movement.
Oh, and I like what Shotwell has to say. Fuck the pie-cards, they've always been an obstacle. It's just more apparent during a vibrant social movement.