As it always goes, when organized labor does something to appeal to younger voters, i.e. when it is relevant to their life, it will expand. But what's it doing?

When it comes to the generation who came to full political awareness during the Clinton administration, I think a lot of the individuals who are most likely to be supportive of labor are also the most likely to be skeptical of the Democrats being of any use to the labor movement.

Speaking as someone involved in the anti-globalization movement of the late 90s, I can tell you that at the time there were a whole lot of people in their teens and twenties who were sympathetic to labor but had zero interest in the Democratic party. Globalization and the repeated snubbing of labor by the Democrats were key factors leading many to support Nader in 2000. Dean's movement was able to bring many of us into the fold. I have no idea how many will stick around if Hillary is the Democratic nominee. I suspect a lot will go back to the socialist groups.

Yes, there is, it seems to me, an opportunity for the young, and not-as-young new(!), people coming in on account of Obama and the labor movement to join forces and help advance a progressive agenda for our times.

In response to chemjeff, I disagree that labor is "merely a proxy of the Democratic Party". Many national-level Republicans quite simply are hostile to unions even existing. Some Democrats are hostile or indifferent as well. Almost all of those who are committed to supporting a voice for working people are Democrats, though. That is just the reality. I think if you were to ask most union people if they would prefer it to be that way, or would they rather have both parties receptive to, and competing for the support of, unions, most would say the latter.

I don't know whether an Obama Administration would, for example, be at pains to appoint people to the National Labor Relations Board who will begin to undo some of the damage done by Republican anti-labor Boards in recent decades. I don't see that happening under a McCain Administration, nor under the Administration of any Republican who can get elected president. The Republican business groups would gang up on and destroy any would-be nominee who intimated that maybe unions aren't all bad after all and play a valuable role.

The practical reality is that trying to organize a workplace is extremely risky to one's job given current labor laws. The penalties for employers firing such "troublemakers" are ludicrously light and are accepted by many businesses, some coached by the cottage industry of union-busting consulting firms, as a cost of doing business.

So long as this is the case it is going to be very difficult to increase by much the 8-10% of the private workforce that is organized. The entire workforce doesn't have to be organized to make a huge difference. The US has never had close to half its workforce as union members. When the percentage was in the 30s it made a huge difference for all workers, unionized and non-unionized.

This is no call for "workers of the world" to rule the world. But right now the voices of working people rarely are even represented at tables, corporate or government, where major economic decisions are made. Not surprisingly, given this to be the case, we have seen enormous increases in income and wealth inequality, and in economic insecurity, over the past 3+ decades (see Jacob Hacker's The Great Risk Shift for the latter), corresponding with poor fortunes for the labor movement.

Unionists face difficult judgment calls about where to put their energies given limited resources--in fighting for direct benefits solely for their members or in making direct appeals to non-union members with the hope of generating increases in membership via that route, as just one example. There is a good deal of intellectual energy among unionists, just a shortage of resources to try or implement many of the ideas that are out there about how best to grow the movement.

Unions could, I believe, play a powerful role in helping us get, most likely incrementally, to a single-payer system of health insurance nationally, which is part of the common sense response to economic globalization. They also could--and I hope will--become powerful advocates for an economic security/economic opportunity agenda of the sort Hacker lays out in his book. This is the agenda I had hoped Edwards would articulate forcefully and come to be identified with, affecting as it does all but the very, very top of the income/wealth distribution. (Instead, whether he wanted to or not, he came to be associated with an antipoverty agenda with far more limited appeal to voters.) These are the kinds of workplace concerns that deeply, and increasingly, affect more and more workers and families. And this is where I see the best potential for getting the attention of many workers and families who have never thought of joining a union as a way to promote their economic security.

It has to start with labor law reform, though, I believe. Even though the right to freedom of association, which includes the right to organize (form unions), is widely recognized by countries around the world, the US is one of the very few OECD countries not to have ratified either of the international agreements, Conventions 87 and 98 which express a commitment to respect and protect that human right.

Even Ronald Reagan was able to love a unionist--Polish Solidarity's Lech Walesa. But only when it suited his foreign policy purposes. As it is, Reagan is far more revered by movement conservatives for his firing of air traffic control employees early in his first term. That hatred of unions by most conservatives is just as strong today as it was then. There used to be moderate-to-liberal Republicans who understood that unions were an essential counterweight to otherwise largely unbridled corporate power. There are hardly any left at the national level, however.

So, to the Obama people, I say, hopefully: consider the union movement as a place to devote long-term energy to really make a difference, regardless of how this campaign turns out. Unions: Not a new idea, just a good one. It should also be said that securing a voice for working people and their families in societal decisions may take new forms, or look different, in this era--there is a good deal that has been written on that as well. Some of you Obama people are going to make unions cool in the eyes of a much broader swath of the American public.