The new leadership in the AFL-CIO is committed to putting the "
movement" back into the "labor movement," and there is now
an opportunity for reflection on the role and strategy of
organized labor in our society. This paper questions whether unions really matter anymore, and if they do, what their mission should be. Specifically, it asks whether there is a need to build a
movement simply to represent our own members, or whether this movement have a wider role in society as a whole. Does the fate of the labor movement and workers' rights in the workplace concern more than the ranks of organized labor?