Free Republic

Let’s start at the beginning: Who is Steve Lerner? Steve Lerner is a union organizer best known as the architect of the remarkable Justice for Janitors campaign. He’s considered one of the smartest organizers, if not the smartest organizer, working in the labor movement right now. A month or two ago, when I began asking around for forward-looking labor thinkers who could give me some ideas for where labor should go after Wisconsin, his was the first name I was given — even though he’s no longer actually employed by his union. There was a good reason for that. At...

Global Unions: A Solution to Labor’s Worldwide Decline By Stephen Lerner At no time in history has there been a greater urgency or opportunity to form real global unions whose goal is to organize tens of millions of workers to win economic and social justice by counterbalancing global corporations on the world stage even as the power of the state declines. Over the last twenty years we have debated, organized, experimented, and struggled to rebuild our movement. In looking back at some of what I and others have argued, we’ve developed pieces of an analysis and strategy, but it has...