Last week I posted this essay about how unhappy the AFL-CIO is about being taken for granted by the Democratic Party for decades.



“The time has passed when we can passively settle for the lesser of two evils,” reads the main political resolution passed Tuesday by the AFL-CIO convention delegates. Lee Saunders, chair of the AFL-CIO’s political committee and president of AFSCME, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, introduced the resolution. They lead the labor federation’s two largest unions. Convention managers yoked the resolution to another measure it also approved discussing a labor party, though not by name. “For decades the political system has failed working people,” Weingarten said. “Acting on behalf of corporations and the rich and powerful, the political system has been taking away, one after another, the pillars that support working people’s right to good jobs and secure benefits.” The two measures, adopted October 24, followed a late Monday-evening meeting of supporters of reviving the Labor Party idea. It attracted about 50 delegates to an upstairs meeting room at the convention’s lead hotel. Their contention: Both the Democrats and the Republicans are under corporate domination.

Lots of people who read my essay responded that this didn't mean much, that it was all for show and the Democratic elite won't be impressed.

I predicted that it was only a matter of time before the progressive insurgency and the labor unions worked together. My prediction came true.



The seven national unions that endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for president have come together to back Our Revolution—a national network created to continue the movement that grew out of the Sanders’ challenge in the Democratic primaries.

Currently there are more than 300 local Our Revolution formations in the U.S. and four State Committees (in Texas, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, and Maryland).

The unions—the Amalgamated Transit Union, the American Postal Workers Union, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes, the Communications Workers of America, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, National Nurses United, and United Electrical Workers—have formed Labor for Our Revolution. The group’s purpose is to assist Our Revolution’s campaigns and continue to tap into Sanders’ campaign base to gain support for collective bargaining, contract campaigns, and organizing. The people behind the alliance believe that Our Revolution won’t succeed without a solid foundation in the working class and strong support from the labor movement.

Communications Workers of America (CWA) past president Larry Cohen, who helped lead labor support for the Sanders campaign, is now the Our Revolution board chair and a key leader of Labor for Our Revolution.

Well, guess what? The Democratic Party DID notice.



Flanked by union officials, Democratic leaders on Wednesday unveiled a comprehensive plan to overhaul federal law in a way that would strengthen the ailing labor movement and make it easier for U.S. workers to unionize.

...One proposal would ban states from enacting “right to work” laws, which give workers the option to stop supporting unions while still enjoying the benefits of representation. Other proposals include creating new penalties for companies that engage in union-busting and forbidding the use of permanent replacement workers during labor strikes. Another proposal extends collective bargaining rights to more public employees, including in states that have recently restricted them, such as Wisconsin and Iowa.

If that sounds like a wish list for unions, it pretty much is. As a pillar of the Democratic Party, unions have wanted for years to see mainstream Democrats push for major reforms to the law that would rejuvenate the ranks of organized labor. At the press conference Wednesday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka applauded the proposals, but also emphasized that many Democrats have taken their union support for granted.

Obviously the GOP will reject everything on this list, so like Medicare-For-All, there is no immediate danger of anything passing.

And even if the Dems win next year, there is always a good chance of the Democrats going back on their promises.

Nevertheless, the fact that this came out just days after the AFL-CIO started talking about leaving the Democrats shows that the Dems noticed, and got scared.

Between this and the progressive insurgency, the Democratic Party has a leftist problem it hasn't seen since 1968.

We are still early in this fight.