This is a silly argument. Millions of people are union members. Millions of people gab on the Internet. Millions of people argue with one another in bars. Millions of people have political discussions on line.

They're all part of the "grass roots," if that term is to have any meaning; which is to say, they're people not part of the political elite who might be energized to take meaningful political action.

It's certainly true as a generalization that Internet habitues tend to be underinformed about unions, their history, value, and potential. (Much of which is encapsulated in the bumper sticker that reads THE LABOR MOVEMENT: THE FOLKS THAT BROUGHT YOU THE WEEKEND.) But why belittle the kind of enthusiasm Kos is bringing to his avenue of activism? I don't see Kos dissing unions or saying that labor ought to be pushed away from the table. You're right to point out that unions are a complex network of opinion and potential activism that already exists. So how is this fact some great repudiation of what Kos is up to?

It seems to me a lot of people are picking on Kos for overwrought claims that he hasn't actually made, because everyone's fed up with starry-eyed the-internet-changes-everything rhetoric. I think Kos, who seems quite practical and down-to-earth, deserves a little better than that.

I was not belittling Internet activism. I've been involved in it for over a decade, longer than almost anyone else on the Internet.

But I was protesting Kos's opposition of unions to the "true grassroots." And in politics, the flat reality is that when it comes to funding the Democratic Party, walking the streets, manning the phone banks, and doing the grunt work for elections, union members are the key people doing that work.

And yes, I do jump when I think folks ignore that role of union folks and talk in cliched "declining unions" etc., ignoring the real dynamic organizing going on among many unions that are doing dramatic innovation both in the workplace and in politics.

Nathan, what do we need to do to get those union members voting Democratic again?

Amen Nathan. It is hard to understand why someone as politically astute as Kos has such a hard time understanding the role of unions.

In Illinois they are voting democratic. Of course it could be argued that we had a unique political climate here in the last election cycle. It also starts with the union leadership. AFSCME's leadership is very progressive in Illinois and at the International, though tempered with pragmatism. The Carpenters seem conservative from top down, despite a growing democracy movement.

Overall, and off the top of my head, to win a big majority of the union vote we need six things:

1. a tough candidate who calls a liar just that (i.e. Dean and Graham on Bush right now)

2. don't talk about gun control

3. a military man or woman on the ticket - right now the best person seems to be Wes Clark. Presents a macho tough on terrorism image, gains military credibility etc.

4. Make workers rights a central theme.

5. Make a concerted effort to reach the rank and file of every union.

6. Perhaps, most importantly, has a proven record of supporting unions.

My two... er, three cents

Union members still vote democratic. They're not as solid a bloc as blacks or Jews (I'm guessing), but they are relatively dependable. A conservative poll below suggests that Bush narrowed that gap considerably; a poll from the AFL suggests it was maintained.

(From NRO)
Americans for Tax Reform, the conservative lobby, had The Polling Company survey members of unions and union households on Election Day. In 1996, President Clinton carried voters in union households by a two-to-one margin, 62 percent to 31 percent. Last year, Gore beat George W. Bush by a much slimmer margin, 53 percent to 43 percent. Sixty percent of union households owned guns, and among these voters the results were split: 48 percent apiece for Gore and Bush. (Taken together, these findings imply that members of union households without guns voted 61 to 36 percent for Gore; and that union gunowners were 33 percent more likely than non-owners to vote for Bush — at least if we've done our math right. CNN's exit poll, by the way, found that among all gunowners, Bush won 61 to 36 percent.)

http://www.nationalreview.com/daily/nr020101.shtml

(From the AFL-CIO)
Union members contributed significantly to the narrow Gore-Lieberman win of the popular vote, supporting them over the Bush-Cheney ticket by a margin of 63 percent to 32 percent, according to election night polling of union members by Peter D. Hart Research Associates.

http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/politics/election.cfm

This is right on.

Besides the numbers, unions are important in a couple of other ways.

* They're organized, obviously. There's a structure, people know each other, have a sense of shared identity, vote in union elections and participate actively in other ways. Not in every case obviously, but in general. What the churches are to the Right, unions are (or should be) to the Left.

* They're working class. Again, this is obvious almost to the point of tautology, but people who don't have much experience with unions don't, I think, think much about its implications. Virtually any institution that wields any substantial power in this country (and plenty that don't, like the blogosphere) draws from the same narrow stratum of educated upper-middle and upper class families. Media, electoral politics, business, law, the non-profit sector -- the same neighborhoods, personal backgrounds, graduates of the same elite colleges, etc. Unions are on another planet, socially speaking.

* Related to this, unions are arguably the only genuinely oppositional force in the country. In the sense that they're the only organizations that don't ultimately depend on organized money, i.e. capital. Nothing against progressive magazines and journals, advocacy groups, universities, etc., but all of these depend on the largesse of the owners of capital, eiter directly or via foundations. Unions don't.

For my money, anyone who thinks you can build a successful progressive movement or a fighting Democratic party without unions right at its center is just blowing smoke. Like Nathan says, they *are* the grassroots.

I think Bush's capture os some Union votes died with his election, and with his constant assault on Unions since he got into office. I predict (knock on wood) that the numbers will swing back to the Clintonesque, if the Dem candidate can say the right things (as some others have pointed out above).

I think you're being unfair to Kos.

Unions have their own agenda, and seek to promote it -- usually by voting for Democrats. I would say the other big grassroots Democratic constituency is environmentalists, and they definately have their own agenda, and it often conflicts with the labor agenda.

What Kos wants to do is create a grassroots which is dedicated to the Democratic Party, not the labor movement or Greenpeace. A lot of non-union professionals would like to be a part of this (including me). The people would be the footsoldiers for GOTV efforts (especially in states which don't have a strong union presence) and donate money directly to the party. Every dollar that the Serra Club raises is a dollar that could've gone to the Democratic Party (I won't say the same for unions, because I imagine the union is the first priority for union members).

Congrats, Nathan, for picking this up.

I'm a white-collar, Internet-savvy, professional who also happens to be a progressive Democrat with blue-collar union relatives who are less reliably Democratic than I am.

Blue-collar workers get their news from the television networks - and we know the bias there.

Blue-collar workers are angry at all the powers that be, whether they are rich Republicans or rich Democrats. So maybe they're less reliably Democratic than us white-collar progressives - because we're not speaking to their issues.

Unions provide a way for this blue-collar anger to be channeled into an effective voice, directed against their true enemies.

I want a union leader walking with me, because they're the ones who know how to explain to blue-collar Americans why civil rights for all Americans should matter to them personally.

I want to sit down with a union organizer and figure out how together we can explain that true energy independence would mean more American manufacturing jobs, not less.

I want a union family to tell me what's important for the next Democratic agenda, not just a well-to-do politician with his heart in the right place.

If we work together, we all win. That's the lesson that unions can teach us now, more than ever.

Paul Wellstone got it. Why can't we?

Luke - A large number of union members are also white collar. It is important that you and other Dems understand the relevance of the union movement to your life and politics. (I'm not really saying you don't understand this personally, it wasn't clear though from your post). Reasonable work hours, good pay and benefits, general worker/mgmt peace etc. all stem directly from unions or the threat of unionization. Take it out of the picture and we're right back in the McKinley era. In fact, just look to the "right to work" states and you'll see the dispairty. Wages are higher where union density is higher. This benefits everyone in many ways.

Anyway, my point isn't to give a dissertation on the value of unions to all workers, even the non-unionized. But, Kos and others should work to find common ground between left-wing groups who don't always see eye to eye (and, IMO, this difference is often exagerated in the union/environmental context).

But if non-union professionals want to become a grassroots group to funnel money to the Dems, I see nothing stopping you.

Peace

Luke - A large number of union members are also white collar. It is important that you and other Dems understand the relevance of the union movement to your life and politics. (I'm not really saying you don't understand this personally, it wasn't clear though from your post). Reasonable work hours, good pay and benefits, general worker/mgmt peace etc. all stem directly from unions or the threat of unionization. Take it out of the picture and we're right back in the McKinley era. In fact, just look to the "right to work" states and you'll see the dispairty. Wages are higher where union density is higher. This benefits everyone in many ways.

Anyway, my point isn't to give a dissertation on the value of unions to all workers, even the non-unionized. But, Kos and others should work to find common ground between left-wing groups who don't always see eye to eye (and, IMO, this difference is often exagerated in the union/environmental context).

But if non-union professionals want to become a grassroots group to funnel money to the Dems, I see nothing stopping you.

Peace

Luke - A large number of union members are also white collar. It is important that you and other Dems understand the relevance of the union movement to your life and politics. (I'm not really saying you don't understand this personally, it wasn't clear though from your post). Reasonable work hours, good pay and benefits, general worker/mgmt peace etc. all stem directly from unions or the threat of unionization. Take it out of the picture and we're right back in the McKinley era. In fact, just look to the "right to work" states and you'll see the dispairty. Wages are higher where union density is higher. This benefits everyone in many ways.

Anyway, my point isn't to give a dissertation on the value of unions to all workers, even the non-unionized. But, Kos and others should work to find common ground between left-wing groups who don't always see eye to eye (and, IMO, this difference is often exagerated in the union/environmental context).

But if non-union professionals want to become a grassroots group to funnel money to the Dems, I see nothing stopping you.

Peace

Jesus people - sorry about that.

This isn't an either/or, and blogs are going to be influential this year. Labor is the main grassroots of the Democratic party, and that's a big part of the problem. Labor is still focused only on the industrial and public worker sector; it continues to shrink annually. It has ideas based in 1930s politics, and hasn't updated them to deal with new, service-sector workers for decades.

The Internet is nice. It can spread information to activists and dilettantes. But real political change happens in one-to-one conversations at the local bar, on the playground watching the kids, and in the workplace. That is the real grassroots.

Wrong. At the local bar, they talk dewey-eyed about what an ass-kicker Dubya is--don't he look sharp gettin off that jet.

Ideas. The future for the left is ideas. And as the authors of THE EMERGING DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY note, this is going to come from professionals--ie bloggers--not tired old unions.

Oh, I should note: I'm in a union.

Any Democrat who thinks that unions are their grassroots is smoking their current grassroots and won't have any left for the election.

One minor correction to the previous post about 16 million dues paying members being part of the grassroots. Remember that in the few cases where union members have been given the choice about whether to contribute to political campaigns through their union, about 90% decide not to. But there are still hundreds of thousands of union members who are active in democrat politics and they are the single constituency which will never been ignored. The unions account for the majority of the soft money contributions in the state/national level and since 1995 when the AFL-CIO started putting its own professional campaign workers into the campaigns and buying the ads instead of just handing over the cash (which was a brilliant move by Sweeney to dramatically increase the control over the democrat party), its been up to half of all of the people in some congressional campaign offices.

And many of the grassroots people who are working on political campaigns are being paid by their local unions to prevent this from being a 'contribution' which has to be reported to the FEC. So it is a huge part of the grassroots, even if it is being done because people are being paid to do it.

I think we have to understand things differently. Unions represent a certain kind of interest. Emergent Democracy is a method of organization. They aren't in opposition.

For me, the really important question is how to get unions understanding and using the technology and social habits of the internet. The "few smart, technologically privileged bloggers" are the ones who do understand how to use the medium. And they've shown how effective it can be. Now we need unions that can learn to apply that.

Someone's just started a Labor Union Wiki here :
http://www.seedwiki.com/page.cfm?wikiid=2301&doc=LaborUnionWiki

and it would be nice to see this take off as a place for discussion of union use of wiki / weblogs and other internet "social technology".

I agree with Phil that that these ideas go together.

I do also understand Emma's "Tired old unions" comment though. Disagree, but understand. :-)

I invite all to Detroit to the Labor Notes Conference September 12-14.

And please do use the wiki!

Solidarity, Mark