Just a short note here really. The United Auto Workers were defeated in the drive to unionize the VW plant in Tennessee. The vote was 626 for, 712 against. As most of you know, this was a very unusual dynamic in that the employer did not oppose the union - in fact wanted a union victory. But there was a massive anti-union campaign by all the usual suspects on the right - all the Tennessee politicos and, naturally the Kochs et al.
From my own experience, a union organizing campaign is a very delicate thing - and like so much in life, much easier to destroy than to build. It's a sad loss and I feel for the workers who fought hard to bring the union to their workplace. Much of what underlies this is, of course, the constant and coordinated campaign of anti-union lies that every American has been subjected to for the last 50 years.
I'll console myself with the fact that my own union - California Nurses Association just got confirmation of our win at a major Sutter hospital in San Francisco - so the news is not all bleak for those of us who believe in the rights of workers.