Unions and vision.

[short thoughts]
Labor organizations must necessarily orient their overall trajectories and structures in relation to the economy in which they find themselves. How could it be otherwise in institutions meant to govern wage relations in the favor of workers? There have been fairly radical changes in the economy relative to the period of greatest American organized labor growth, the 30s-50s. As such, it is necessary to reconsider the structures and goals of organized labor, the ideals that animate its long-term projects and thereby inspire short-term projects.

What has changed? Communism is no longer a viable political ideology among American leftists. The Cold War is over, meaning there is no ideological imperative for international economic leaders to seek any level of just treatment for workers. Much of manufacturing has moved to low-wage regions of the global south. The US economy is dominated by low and high wage service sectors. Organized class consciousness barely exists. Economics and business training have been taken over by laissez-faire ideologies and politics has followed in suit. Environmental problems have taken center stage among American progressives and throughout much of society.

The nature of labor in America is currently very mixed. We have a very large immigrant population doing mostly low-wage service and construction work. Anyone involved in production now has the constant threat of outsourcing. The only perceived "safe" jobs, besides the highest levels of the professions, are directly applied skilled labor. Nursing, skilled construction, etc.

How can labor respond in this climate? The first step must be accepting something we rarely seem to consider, that any approach organized labor takes must be all-encompassing. That manufacturing employment has declined in America and that it is more tenuous does not mean that manufacturing should not be considered in terms of the trajectories and goals of organized labor. American labor must consider the aggregate of labor, the economy of the world as a whole, if it is to begin to mount successful campaigns against the directives of global industry.

That being said, the next step may be to recreate a vision for labor, a direction to guide its efforts, applicable to the economy as a whole and adequate to both the current organization of labor and the values and desires animating members of the working class, both in the US and abroad.

It is clear that these values are not systemic, the "working class" of the world is highly fragmented by culture, interest, and economic position. So any semi-coherent vision would have to allow that level of fundamental diversity.
[phenomenology of labor; immediacy of translating desire into work, autogestion, cooperative commonwealth]