PSSSST...:

Will Labor Waste Its Big Opportunity? (Ruth Marcus, September 6, 2009, Washington Post)

Fewer than half of Americans -- 48 percent -- approve of labor unions, down from 59 percent a year ago, according to a new Gallup poll. That number is the lowest since Gallup started asking the question in 1936. Only 12.4 percent of workers -- and just 7.6 percent of those in the private sector -- belong to unions, down from 20 percent in 1983. [...]

Even as President Obama and other administration officials have signaled that they might need to abandon the public option, Trumka drew a line in the sand. "We won't support a bill if it doesn't have the public option in it," he said at a briefing last week. "Let me be as clear as I can be -- it's an absolute must."

It's hard for me to understand why this is the right line to draw -- especially for labor, whose workers are in group plans and would not be covered by a public option -- or why this is the right time to draw it.

...Big Labor has little interest in what's best for its own members.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 6, 2009 7:52 AM