Walter Reuther, the iconic leader of the UAW, had an idea back in the post WW II era. Build America's labor movement by organizing hard, striking and negotiating, but tie the union's future to the companies that keep America moving--GM, Ford, etc. He used to characterize it as 'social democracy' in one union or it could have been called 'social democracy' in one industry--the Wall Street Journal has probably tagged it as such, come to think of it. It was brilliant at the time. Now, not so much.

Reuther built his union by building bargaining power that created a middle class and built an organized progressive left at the same time. Under his leadership the union was key to the burgeoning civil rights movement and even to the creation of the New Left and SDS, many of whose leaders had disdain for this bastion of the old left. (It was at the UAW retreat, Port Huron, where the famous SDS statement was drafted. The retreat had arranged for the young activists by Millie Jeffrey, a Reutherite UAW leader and feminist leader whose daughter was among the SDS founders).

Reuther and his minions formulated a strategy where their members would earn enough to grow their families, retire without fear for want, and have health care for life, all the things that progressives today argue that we want for this nation. But the world has changed so how do we get there from here?

Future Reutherites, like former UAW president Doug Frazer,who came from hearty Scottish socialist stock, bargained themselves a seat on the company board, which was revolutionary at the time--sitting in the board room of Chrysler, but as we've seen, this seat didn't earn the union the ability it needed to swim while the companies sunk.

In hindsight, this strategy, while it worked when a postwar America experienced an economic and industrial boom and did so without the strains and tests of a new global economy, left the union completely at the mercy of bad corporate decisions and greedy corporate ceos. Today, the UAW members await congressional aide to bail out short-sighted corporate players. Countless retirees are holding their breath as current union members get sadly pitted against retirees for benefits and more, and all the workers could end up as just one more set of creditors at the bankrupt companies' door.

All of this is not to say that Reuther was wrong. He was, I think, right for his time--and his boldness allowed him to build a union whose power was masterful, drawing from intellectuals and others to enhance the union's stretch. Moreover, he was a visionary and he saw the labor movement as something beyond simply the shop floor but an engine and a catalyst for making change in the country and the world (he was one of the earliest opponents to the Vietnam War, and as a strong anti-Communist, he articulated a foreign policy for America that promoted democracy abroad by strengthening unions overseas). But the times have changed and in ways that Reuther and others around him could not have been expected to imagine.

The fact is that industrial unionism succeeded; but their industries failed. The economy has shifted and so must our thinking about how to build workers' power.

So, now what? We need a labor movement as bold as Reuther's was before (and it wasn't only Reuther-others like John L. Lewis of the Mineworkers and Sidney Hillman of the Clothing Workers were equally iconoclastic--it's just that their industries--coal and clothing/textile--took a beating long before the auto industry...) with new ideas and strategies. The precondition is there now with the incoming Obama administration, which was a precondition to giving the unions breathing space to move forward.

Fighting now for a national response to issues like health care, pensions and right to organize are key to this new global reality. Minimum wage laws are a model for this; while unions bargain wages for their members, having a federal law with a legally mandated minimum guarantees legal protection for workers whether their company is unionized or not and allows unions a bit of space when negotiating wages so that the wages aren't falling through the floor (which is not to say that the minimum wage is enough--it is, after all, a minimum :-)

There needs to be a universal approach to social justice that will empower workers and put the union movement in the center of the struggle for social change once again. There needs to be a recognition that we live in a global economy, where trade is a factor, and that workers and their unions need to grow together to retool for an ever-changing economic reality. There needs to be a rethinking about how workers identify as union members and what unions can deliver and how they position themselves in the broader progressive sphere. There needs....there needs. The needs are great and finally, we have a playing field upon which the needs can be realized. And probably in ways that past generations never imagined --