Unions Lose Again in Wisconsin: It looks as if the organized labor movement has failed to recall enough Wisconsin Republicans to regain control of the state senate. That’s a) in an off-year election where union turnout usually makes the difference b) in famously progressive Wisconsin c) after spending many millions d) with a nationwide media and organizing push e) when labor had a galvanizing issue in Gov. Scott Walker’s direct assault on the institutional collective bargaining power of public employees, which led to a dramatic walkout by Democrats.
I can hear the Democratic bloggers now: “Maybe it’s time to rethink our blind committment to a 75-year-old law that was always an unsatisfying tire patch on capitalism’s excesses–but that now looks like an archaic, morally arbitrary institution that only empowers entrenched interests, prevents accountability, discredits liberal government and mires America’s private productive institutions in productivity-sapping legalism–and start thinking about replacing it with something better the way New Left radicals did in the 60s and neoliberals like Robert Reich did in the ’80s and ’90s before they gave up and made their peace with Big Labor because Democrats needed the money …
Nah.”
Update: “Nah”