Here is another great take by Harry Kelber on why the national unity partnership idea is a non-starter. I especially like his take on the plan to invest $25 million a year into organizing Wal-Mart: “Choosing Wal-Mart as the first organizing project makes no practical sense at all, since the United Food and Commercial Workers has spent millions of dollars over many years and has not been able to organize even one of Wal-Mart’s 4,750 supermarkets. What would Stern do differently, except pour more money into the organizing campaign?” Good question. Attacks on Wal-Mart are good for newspaper coverage (something a lot of union leaders crave), but right now unions need members – which means picking off easy targets one small unit at a time.
