"You can see both sides, but it's a problem for the unions when they fight so much among each other," said Scott D. Carmichael, vice president of Labor Relations Institute Inc., a consulting service that helps businesses fight union organizing drives. "From talking to peers in my circle, we figure we've got eight to 10 years of a career left. After that, we'd better retire because we won't have anything left to do."
BusinessWeek's got a great cover story this week on Andy Stern (president of the SEIU) and the coming storm at the AFL-CIO quadrennial next year. It's rare to find good behind-the-scenes journalism on labor's internal politics, so this one's definitely worth a read.
For what it's worth, I'm praying Stern wins.
UPDATE: I've found something more profound to say about this article. Specifically, why the hell isn't the blogosphere talking about it? There's literally hundreds of blogs focused largely on progressive politics, and nobody's picked up on an extensive story about the future of the largest and most significant progressive constituency. Bizarre.