Since part of the goal of this blog is to open a broader dialogue with non-labor progressives, I thought I'd respond to a few issues raised in comments.

Reese: "But what good is a union when the laborers involved are individuals with a bachelors degree or graduate work who do mental work, i.e. not physically taxing work, all day and receive relatively high compensation and benefits?"

Like university professors, unionized on campuses throughout the California State University system or actors and Hollywood writers, who are heavily unionized?  Office workers of all kinds are unionized in government, for example.  Workers of all kinds, from baseball players down to janitors, have interests that are different from their employers and unions have created a wide range of contracts that reflect those interests. 

One myth out there is that every union contract looks like the United Auto Workers, with relatively set hours and seniority systems.    

But as sports and Hollywood union contracts highlight, there are plenty of alternative contract models out there that reflect the needs of workers for non-traditional compensation systems.

No group of workers have more individual ability to negotiate their terms for employment than baseball players, yet they also feel the need to collectively organize the framework within which those individual negotiations happen.  Which is a pretty strong example that there is probably no industry where workers would not benefit from having a union to negotiate such collective terms.

One reason Hollywood unions have remained strong is that they set the terms for who owns the intellectual property produced in that city and how the proceeds from it are distributed.  There is a quite elaborate system of dividing credit and payments from that IP, both to individuals and to collective pension systems. 

For a long time, high-tech workers thought stock options were all they needed to assure their share of the corporate pie, but the dot-com bust has shown that's a pretty random way to take care of your family over the long-term.  Why shouldn't high-tech workers learn from Hollywood about how unions can create a framework for more equitably sharing the proceeds of intellectual property between firms and their workers?

Glenn: "let me give you my initial take on why some Dems, this one included, don't tend to see labor as part of the broader progressive movement -- it's because I don't see labor unions seeing themselves that way.  Let me give you an example from here in NYC: the Jets Stadium...The construction unions were solidly behind it, for obvious reasons -- their own jobs."

Notably, a range of African-American leaders in NYC were also supporting the West Side development, so one might argue it's the generally well-off West Side residents who were defecting from the progressive coalition, not the construction unions. 

But that said, of course specific unions can do better on longer-term alliances-- another example is better alliances with environmental groups -- but that has to go both ways.  Many of the West Side opponents could be fighting harder for alternative development plans that would build expanded housing and just as many construction jobs as the stadium.  A few opponents are, but many just had a NIMBY reaction.

This implicit attack on unions as parochial for promoting jobs just feeds the Republican caricature that liberals don't have an agenda for job creation.  The West Side stadium might not be the best approach, but that should put the onus on opponents to propose an alternative that creates as many or more jobs, not just attack the unions for taking the best deal out there, since they don't see enough strong partners in the rest of the liberal coalition who care about jobs for the non-college educated.

Reece: "a lot of issues that are at the forefront of our national political discussion cut across issues that may otherwise align voters.  The simple example is abortion.  One's view on abortion is not affected by one's membership or participation in a union."

Here is why unions are so critical to the progressive coalition, since many of these supposed non-economic social issues become quite relevant economic issues when discussed in the workplace context.   A basic issue for women in the workplace is whether their workplace health insurance will cover abortion and contraception, and many unions have fought vigorously on behalf of women for equity in health coverage connected to reproductive rights. 

Similarly, gay marriage is not just a religious issue, but an economic issue for gay workers denied benefits in the workplace.  This is why the AFL-CIO in both Massachusetts and Michigan opposed the anti-gay marriage amendments last fall.

Which highlights an overall point-- labor unions are involved in far more issues of concern to progressives than I think most of them recognize.  They read headlines in the newspaper, like the union involvement in the West Side stadium, and think That's What Unions Do, while they ignore the far wider range of union coalitions that are vital to progressive work across the country.