The Gary Null Blog

This Labor Day, as union membership falls to a mere seven percent of private sector workers and bargaining and political clout shrink to match, two roads diverge for American labor. One is to attempt to find a niche within an economic-political system that is ever more shaped by short-term greed and is therefore ever more unsustainable economically, socially, and environmentally. The other is to align with the long-term interest of workers in transforming that system to provide for a sustainable future for the planet and its people. Organized labor will have a better future if it chooses the second road.Joe Uehlein and his daughter came to support the Tar Sands Action on August 24th, 2011. "To have a future itself," writes Uehlein, "Organized labor needs to reorient itself around the objective of providing a sustainable future for all working people and the world we inhabit. That means putting millions of people to work creating a sustainable economy, society, and environment." (Photo Credit: Shadia Fayne Wood)

Labor has always had two hearts beating within a single breast – one representing a particular group of workers, the other responding to the wider needs of working people as a whole. But now unions can only protect their members by championing the interests of all working people.