"One reason labor has great hesitancy in talking about a completely government run health care system is that they'd have to depend on allies to keep their benefits strong-- rather than depend on their own strength."

I would submit that the largest portion of the unwillingness of Unions to speak of health care is the weakness of thier enrollment, particularly in the South, where they have made almost no progress at all in fifty years.   They need to keep Southern politicians happy lest they poison the well before they drink from it.  

Love them in concept though I do, Unions have stalled out of almost any intellectual progress at all, and have been stuck in a rut for a very long time.  Membership declines, and news outlets claim people are loosing interest in Unions.  That ignores the fact that a significant portion of the economy has shifted to what would ordinarily be white collar jobs, but which by any rational standard of income and status within the company qualify as labour jobs.  Union organizers have been slow to follow this trend, and those Unions that have picked up on Service jobs have usually done so out of desperation rather than commitment.  I have commented at length on this topic on my own site.

 I am all for the feeling of solidarity with Unions expressed in this peice, but pinning the woes of the Unions on a few bored remarks from people who've obviously never been poor is misguided.

Due respect, but I never meant to imply that the public has soured on Unions, rather that this is the implication in most of the reporting I've seen on the subject.

As far as millions of white collar workers hired by Unions, I wouldn't know anything about that as a white collar worker.  I've been in the IT industry for six years now and know of only one Union shop in my city, and no other outward signs of Union presence.  A local company I worked for called The Sutherland Group, Ltd. had a Union push that was actually rejected by the employees without a single firing that I know of.  Make of that what you may, but thats just what I know about Rochester.  

And as far as being out of date, hiring the millions of workers you speak of doesn't mean they've modernized in any way.  From what I can see, Unions are still in the practice of Unionizing shops.  While this is fine and necessary, I don't see any push to influence the Consultant field.  "Consultancy" in the IT industry usually means being something like a temporary worker.  Unions could be getting a foothold in this sector in much the same way as say a carpenter's Union controls the hiring of carpenters for construction jobs.

Anyway, that's my take on it.  Don't let me stiffle the debate, if I'm wrong, I'm all ears. 

So let me get this straight. Jason Furman publishes a well-researched paper suggesting that Wal-Mart may create significant progressive benefits for the nation's working classes. Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein both criticize the paper for its anti-union bias, but go on to note that it makes some good points. And you, in turn, blast them for being disloyal.

 What the fuck? Seriously, what are you thinking?

Neither Ezra nor (especially) Matt unambiguously endorsed the Furman article. They simply noted that, in a spirit of commitment to the truth - remember the truth? - it makes some good points that need to be taken seriously. Matt even went out of his way to illustrate why Furman's thesis may be nullified by his complete lack of attention to union issues.

 It seems to me that you're the one being disloyal here, not to mention dishonest. After all, you could present a case that Furman is wrong. You could even present a case - a much teensier case - that Matt is wrong and that the U.S. really is subsidizing Wal-Mart at unacceptable taxpayer cost. Instead, you do neither, implicitly acknowledging that you have no factual ground to stand on, and instead pointing fingers and making accusations of treason.

Christ. I want the labor movement to resurge, too, but not at the expense of this kind of demogoguery. You'd sacrifice real progressivism on the altar of "winning".

seems matt's argument was more that doing this strategy is risky ideologically and rhetorically because while you want to make corporate beasts better, unionized employers, you don't want to support attacks on basic provisions of the welfare state at the same time. he doesn't seem to be actually saying that wal-mart is good, just that it's dangerous to push attacks that could easily be turned against the workers themselves, i.e. they're sponging off the public dole. the particular legislation doesn't sound like it does that of course, but the rhetoric is dangerous because the Right is normally the side most interested in cultivating a horrified and aghast stance towards public welfare, and they're perfectly willing to steal whatever moves we make to gut social spending in general.

Loyalty and message discipline are for politicians, not writers.

I applaud the two of them for noting certain points about Furman's article that could help the progressive cause for universal health care.