the idea is sold that as long as the "white working class males get theirs, you can ignore everybody else." I do not think this is the message you intend to mean, but as a Hispanic, I can tell you it is the message that many of those beloved unions did operate under for many years.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-workers-future-labor-n193111
Up until the Obama administration, even as their numbers dwindled, many labor unions did not want Hispanics. What's worse, is that we were treated like the enemy, we could not get into the union, yet were treated like scabs. To be fair, Richard Trumpka has made some very heroic efforts to fix this, ones the afl-cio really does deserve praise for:
http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Other-News/11-Important-Facts-About-Latinos-in-the-U.S.-Workforce
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/11/labor-unions-racialinjusticeracerelationsaflcioferguson.html
"In 2008 the president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, openly criticized union members who were hesitant to vote for then-candidate Barack Obama because of his race. Trumka has since made addressing racial injustice a priority for the country’s largest labor federation. It is not surprising, then, that he has now waded into the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri, pledging the AFL-CIO’s support to help address the ongoing turmoil sparked by the Aug. 9 shooting of African-American teen Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson."
but Trumpka's work started in the Obama years, way too late. And of course, we know that the general backlash against immigration got embraced some Union members, whether here or the UK.
Now, I want labor back as a vital measure to protect all our wages. Hell, if Richard Trumpka ran in 2020, he would have by vote, Put him with someone like Liz Warren, who has spoken on economics in as clear and sharp terms as Bernie ever did, would. However, just as you would not the Debbie Schultz's to see you as a means to their end, we do not want you to see us as a means to your end. No we are not fighting so that bankers in Brooklyn can get the snazzy gentrified apartments, but no, that does not mean we want to go back to the days where as long as white men had jobs, everybody had to wait in the back of the bus.
Not only are both approaches immoral, but it also ensures the real enemies, the billionaires that buy off millionaires, get to bury all of us. ALL OF US.
speaking of which, I might as well ask this as a postscript. While you seem, to rail at what is called "identity politics" , if Liz Warren ran, would you have supported her?
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