No history lessons

History Headline News looks at why history may not have any lessons for today's labor movement:

Perhaps the biggest difference between what's happening in Chicago and what happened in Atlantic City (in 1935) is in the workers themselves. In the mid thirties, the CIO could not hand out union cards fast enough. Workers were hungry for representation, voice, and a route out of economic misery. Armed with the new tool of the sit-down strike, the unions marched through major industry facing down goons, street battles, plant occupations, and court fights until they triumphed in nearly all of basic industry. Today's battles are clearly in the service sector, the hope is that similar upheavals might follow a breakthrough at the top of the labor hierarchy. Such a victory would, however, have to be a social movement of unimaginably gargantuan proportions that would have to overcome tremendous odds and work in close harmony with other social movements. The unions would have to enroll more than a million members a year in order to see a single percent up tick in union density. That would have to be achieved among workers who, however demonstrably unhappy they may be with the terms of their employment, seem only to have a modest interest in the vision put forth by the labor movement.

The rest of the article is interesting, if labor sympathetic.