Reich Proclaims, ‘we are witnessing a historic rebirth of the labor union movement’

In a recent op-ed on the online blog AlterNet, former Secretary of Labor (1993-1997) Robert Reich predicts, “the pendulum will continue to swing towards unions.”
Reich, a staunch advocate of labor, wrote the article after the United Auto Workers won their election at Volkswagen in Chattanooga, TN. He writes, “we are witnessing a historic rebirth of the labor union movement in America. Labor unions are not just an interest group. They are gaining heft, solidarity, and passion to become what they once were — a movement.”
In 2022, at the AFL-CIO Convention in Philadelphia, the federation set its priorities for the next four years to build a “movement to meet the moment.”
Since then, unions, large and small, have won elections, negotiated contracts, held historic strikes, and effectively rebuilt the American middle class one brick at a time.
In Chattanooga, the United Auto Workers’ win is historic. The UAW suc-cessfully organized a foreign automak-er in the US Southeast, puncturing a long-standing belief that unions can’t win in the Republican-led South. They not only won, but they demolished anti-union Republicans.
The UAW doesn’t plan to stop there. Its next target is a Mercedes Benz Group, which operates an auto-assembly plant and a new battery-assembly plant outside