Labor leaders are responding with programs to overhaul their image. They want unions to be seen as a dynamic force for social justice, not as a stodgy special interest.
That's where the seminary students come in.
For $300 a week, they're organizing security guards in metropolitan Washington, carpenters in Boston, hotel maids in Chicago, meatpackers in Los Angeles. Some spend their days with the workers, trying to give them courage to mobilize. Others visit local congregations to urge solidarity with the union cause.
This was probably an inevitable backlash against the current Republican coalition, and it seems to be an example of how unions can still be a leading force on the left. A job well started by the AFL-CIO...which will hopefully lead to much better things for both the union movement, and for progressivism generally.
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