I am, by sentiment, by heritage and by political perspective, a fan of the organized labor movement --which, as I see it, improves the lives of its members and the content of the body politic. As a result, each Labor Day seems an occasion more for nostalgia than celebration. My ideas about the decline of the labor movement are confused and the solutions, tentative.

The proportion of the US work force which is represented by union continues its decline year-to-year. The sectors in which union-membership growth occurs at all, public employment and health care, are largely outside of the profit-making sector of the economy so that those employers are somewhat less frantic and use fewer scorched-earth “preventive labor relations” tactics. Retail giants like Wal-Mart and Starbucks fight unions tooth and nail, mostly with success. For a thoughtful, but somewhat dated, essay by labor educator-gadlfy Harry Kelber on unions’ very long losing streak click here.

For a person like me, who came of age in the course of the civil rights movement of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, it was a perfect left-wing storm: Blacks, Asians, Jews, clergy, labor united, demanding dignity and workers' rights. Your chance to march with them is Saturday June 9, 2007. More about that after the jump.

Demanding enactment of a NYS “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights” hundreds of domestic workers – largely, it seemed, West Indian and Asian, packed into the Sanctuary of Judson Memorial Church, listened to their leaders, AFL-CIO president John Sweeny, socialist-author-blogger, Barbara Ehrenreich, State Labor Commissioner M. Patricia Smith and leaders of Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ). There was, by the way, lots of great food.