AFL-CIO

Labor Watch
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: The Old Left and the Reds
American labor radicalism has come a long way from Soviet agents in the Congress of Industrial Organizations through the UAW-funded Students for a Democratic Society to today’s SEIU purple-shirted demonstrators…
by Michael Watson on March 6, 2025

Labor Watch
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: Labor and the New Left
The collapse of American Communism was not the end of American leftist radicalism, and the labor union movement would negotiate a complex dance with the “New Left” from its beginning…
by Michael Watson on March 6, 2025

Labor Watch
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: The Rise of the SEIU
Among the many problems afflicting Big Labor as the Long Decline began was organizing; namely turning workers into dues-paying union members, especially in the growing service industries and the historically…
by Michael Watson on March 6, 2025

Labor Watch
A History of Everything Leftist Unionism: Labor’s New Coalition
American labor radicalism has come a long way from Soviet agents in the Congress of Industrial Organizations through the UAW-funded Students for a Democratic Society to today’s SEIU purple-shirted demonstrators…
by Michael Watson on March 6, 2025

Labor Watch
Who Is Big Labor, Anyway?
There are three persistent, widespread myths about union members. First, many believe that organized labor speaks for wage- and salary-earners as a class based on overwhelming membership. Second, many believe…
by Michael Watson on February 3, 2025

Labor Watch
The SEIU and the Teamsters Changed to Lose
In 2005, Andy Stern and James P. Hoffa, the leaders of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), led their massive unions and five…
by Michael Watson on January 14, 2025

Labor Watch
DOGE and the Department of Labor
In recent years the U.S. Department of Labor has routed millions of dollars under various grantmaking initiatives to nonprofits that would most accurately be characterized as left-wing activist groups. In…
by Robert Stilson on January 9, 2025

Labor Watch
Follow Trump 45 Labor Policy, Not the Teamsters Union
Following the election, I noted that President-elect Donald Trump did very little to pander to union bosses on policy substance. Trump’s Vice President-elect, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), gave a…
by Michael Watson on November 21, 2024

Philanthropy
Recent Books, Mostly By Liberals Or Progressives, Presciently Critiquing Progressive Philanthropy’s Effects
“By the Trump years, the Democratic party blob was collectively better coordinated, more politically focused, and much butter funded than ever before. Law, technology, and political polarization all came together…
by Michael E. Hartmann on November 20, 2024

Labor Watch
About the Three Working Classes
In August 2024, University of Pennsylvania professor and former member of the George W. Bush administration John J. DiIulio Jr. published an op-ed in National Review on the political trends…
by Michael Watson on November 14, 2024