If progressives want to lock in and expand the progressive victories we had last Tuesday, everyone should be joining hands to push through labor law reform as the most important priority.  Yes, we want to use our victory to deliver on needed priorities, from health care to green jobs to civil rights, and governing well to solve real problems will help at reelection time.

But from a cold, pragmatic level, the demographics of the election are clear-- progressives get the overwhelming support of blacks, Jews, gays and young people, but we can't  create more of those (well not for eighteen years in the case of more young people).   We can expand the latino and new immigrant vote through immigration reform legalization of undocumented immigrants, which should be more of a  progressive priority for that reason, but in the larger electorate, there is  nothing that will expand progressive power more than increasing unionization.

Building Unions Delivers Union Voters:  Look at the voting numbers--

• 67 percent of union members voted for Obama while only 30 percent chose McCain

• More dramatically, union members over 65 voted by a 46-point margin for Obama, while all voters over 65 voted for McCain by an 8-point margin

• And unionization is the decisive difference in how less educated whites voted-- Obama won by 23 points among white non-college graduates who belong to a union, even as he lost by 18 points among all white non-college voters.

Changing labor law to make it possible for the 50% of Americans who say they want to be in a union to be in one would lead to dramatic additional progressive gains in voting results.   It is no coincidence that Obama won 26 out of the 29 most unionized states in the country (see this table for percentage of unionization by state).  "Blue America" is largely America where unions still have the power to do outreach to working families at election time.

Unions create institutions with day-to-day contact with key swing voters:   The reality is that the workplace remains, along with churches, one of the only institutions where large groups of people come together on a weekly basis.  Unions create a voice in workplaces that emphasize the responsibility of corporations to deliver decent wages and demands for government policy that serve the interests of the public, not just elite interests. 

Because unions represent a workplace as a whole, they necessarily have contact with a much more diverse set of people in each state compared to most progressive organizations whose membershipa are made up of self-identified activists and progressives of various stripes.  Just by representing the diversity of workers in contract fights, grievances and other day-to-day workplace situations, unions develop relationships that make them surprisingly trusted sources of political information during elections.  Seven in ten union members say they trust information on politics coming from their unions-- which when framed in solid issue-oriented information on candidates, translates into the strong Democratic voting patterns by union members. (See these instructions on how unions seek to talk to their members about politics to be effective.)

Helping to create more institutions where workers talk day-to-day about their political and economic needs is inherently a recipe for better political changes-- but the most obvious results come on election day.

Unions are Self-Funding Institutions that Fund Further Progressive Activity:  One important fact to recognize is that there is always discussions of rewarding political friends when in power, but most progressive organizations don't have the capacity to generate significant additional funds for social change organizing and politics based on that help. 

Unions don't depend on outside help for their financial existence.  They are essentially the only progressive organizations that annually generate billions of dollars in income each year without government or corporate donations, allowing them to act independently on behalf of the interests of working families.  This is important in blue states, but if labor law reform is passed and more unions form in conservative non-union states, the effects will be radical.

As I noted when 5000 janitors organized in Houston in 2005:

Think of the Houston janitors as a beachhead in hostile territory...Do these numbers-- janitors pay dues of roughly $20 per month, or a bit over $200 per year.  Multiply by 5000 and you suddenly have an organization with $1 million per year to promote organizing and political mobilization in the Houston area.    

The Right Recognizes the Danger of Labor Law Reform:   It's worth remembering that major labor law reform was proposed in the 60s, the 70s and the 90s when Democrats controlled the Congress and the Presidency-- and business went to the wall to defeat and filibuster it each time.   Business leaders never spent the same kind of political capital to defeat the civil rights laws, environmental laws, expanded aid to education, womens rights laws, Medicaid, Medicare and a host of other key progressive legislation that was enacted in the last fifty years, because they knew that if they could block labor's resurgence, the ability of progressives to pass new legislation would be undermined.

That strategy worked as the 70s gave way to the Reagan era and social programs and regulations were gutted.  Despite hopes around the Clinton victory in 1992, that rapidly gave way to the Gingrich-Bush years.  

But now, through a combination of disasterous mismanagement and ideological overreaching by Bush and a broad progressive regrouping of power on the ground, progressives have regained some real degree of power at the federal level.  This was assisted by what was in some ways a labor resurgence, not of absolute numbers organized but of more intelligent mobilization of both members and funds by unions to assist in this victory.

For both the progressive movement as a whole, and unions in particular, this victory could be short-lived if we don't act to lock in institutional power beyond government itself.  The corporate right and religious right both have institutions that sustain their power whether they directly control government day-to-day or not.  If progressives don't use their time in power to enact labor law reform, the coming years will likely end up being just one more false dawn of progressive revival.  On the other hand, supporting a resurgence of labor through labor law reform could well be the tool for permanent political realignment, just as it was in the New Deal era.