Many strategists and even some labor officials argue that the genuine passion and emotion being felt and displayed on the ground in Wisconsin is obscuring a central problem: Unions still haven’t figured out even a semblance of an effective PR strategy.True enuff, as far as it goes -- but how far does it go? To what extent is the problem just the frame, unionistas? There's also the structural problem of state fiscal crises, and the political-cultural problem of ubiquitous deficit hawkery, right?
“Whatever happened to the vague sense 10 years ago of the need to develop a community unionism?” asked another official, who suggested labor leaders on the ground in Wisconsin shouldn’t have been surprised by the Walker attack, yet were clearly caught off guard. “They’ve been talking only to themselves for too long.”
Maybe one day we get some goddamn labor officials that don't think genuine passion and emotion get in the way.
ReplyDeleteTheir job is to get an effective message out that uses the passion and emotion working people feel when they are being kicked around.
Jeebus, half the problem of the labor movement since 1940 written in that first sentence there.