Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

Labor Watch
The Turn at the Millennium: Why Big Labor Switched Sides on Immigration
In 2000, the executive council of the AFL-CIO reversed its policy on immigration, calling for amnesty for undocumented immigrants and ending sanctions on their employers. This represented a turn for…
by Michael Watson on March 26, 2024

Labor Watch
Big Labor’s Decline and Left Turn: A New Power Rises
As President John F. Kennedy took office in January 1961, organized labor looked ahead toward a future of ever-increasing power and influence. States had begun to advance laws requiring themselves…
by Michael Watson on March 21, 2024

Labor Watch
Big Labor’s Decline and Left Turn: Labor’s Private-Sector Left
In the 1960s, government worker unionism subordinating the wider labor movement was still decades away. The Left of organized labor (laying aside some straggling outright communists and fellow-travelers like International…
by Michael Watson on March 21, 2024

Labor Watch
Big Labor’s Decline and Left Turn: Causes of the Long Decline
By 1979, when Lane Kirkland succeeded George Meany as head of the AFL-CIO, fundamental changes to the economy had led to a decline in the unionized share of the private…
by Michael Watson on March 21, 2024

Labor Watch
Big Labor’s Decline and Left Turn: A Trade Unionist in the White House
Precisely one former national labor union president has been elected to the presidency of the United States: Ronald Reagan. Before his political career, he was already a notable figure, perhaps…
by Michael Watson on March 21, 2024

Labor Watch
Big Labor’s Decline and Left Turn: Membership Decline
Lane Kirkland, leadership of the AFL-CIO from 1979 through 1995, was defined by the Long Decline in union membership and union density, the proportion of the workforce consisting of organized…
by Michael Watson on March 21, 2024

Labor Watch
The Price of Bent Unions Is Red Unions
Corruption within organized labor is pervasive, but what happens to a union after the thieves, Mafiosi, or corrupt political fixers have been driven out by the long arm of the…
by Michael Watson on February 29, 2024

Labor Watch
The Myth of the “Nonpolitical” Labor Union
The labor-conservative faction led by American Compass—an ostensibly conservative think tank funded by liberal Big Philanthropy—has an insurmountable problem in converting the conservative movement and the Republican Party from its…
by Michael Watson on October 6, 2023

Organization Trends
National Lawyers Guild: Origins and Early Years
The National Lawyers Guild is a radical-left association of attorneys, law students, legal workers, and jailhouse lawyers. Since its founding in 1936 or 1937, the Guild has consistently been identified…
by CRC Staff on July 19, 2022

Organization Trends
A History of Radicalism at the National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild, a nonprofit association of left-wing attorneys and others connected to the legal profession, has recently received attention for its association with some of the most controversial…
by Robert Stilson on March 10, 2022