These are the times that try our souls

The summer soldier and the sunshine unionist will hide in their closets, hoping and praying that the crisis we now face, brought on by billionaires, will end like a bad dream does in the morning. The attacks on unions won’t go away. Those militants who stay in the fight, however, will earn the respect of women and men for years, decades, and centuries to come.

The words of Thomas Paine that we paraphrase here were written almost 250 years ago; Paine could not have foreseen the current crisis, but his words are valid nonetheless.

Organized labor is facing the most severe crisis it has seen in decades; it may be the most dangerous situation in its entire existence. Unions in government – the “Public Sector” – are now on the chopping block. Anyone who thinks about it should realize that if the public sector unions can be destroyed, the rest of our unions won’t last long.

What can we do about it? What have unions done aleady?