The primary season is showing both the strength and weakness of organized labor. In states like Ohio where traditional labor issues like trade loom large (as they will in Pennsylvania), Hillary Clinton has done well too. But this says as much about where the labor movement is today as it does about where the two candidates are.

The labor gap is part of today's generation gap in the trade union movement. The amazing energy that has been generated especially by young voters for Obama has to be harnessed by Labor to make certain that any progressive movement takes hold. That means that workplace issues--and there is a long list: right to organize , job security, pensions, health care, job-work balance, income inequality,--all of these need to be as important to young voters as cleaning up the environment, ending global warming and freedom on social issues.

In an earlier era, the labor movement played a critical behind the scenes role for fueling a progressive movement.

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