I can also say from first hand experience that SEIU does the same thing here in Baltimore: rely on lobbying politicians and getting them to intercede legislatively for the health care industry. This happened over a hospital bankruptcy in Prince Georges County a few years back. The SEIU shop stewards I knew all saw their union’s role as that: lobbying for beneficial legislation, not mobilizing membership or reaching out to the general public, even as a traditional union may have routinely done a couple decades ago.

This raises my final point, which I haven’t really seen adequately addressed: discussion of unions in the U.S. inevitably focus on numbers and growth but not on questions of what it means to be a union activist today. A couple generations ago and even before, to be a union activist involved dedication and commitment to a larger “cause.” Today, that sensibility has almost totally disappeared and the relationship between union member and union is almost inevitably that of client and service provider. This decline in subjectivity has many causes, including those promoted by the conservative left, but it’s a subject largely not acknowledged in discussion of the labor movement.