Vietnam Protest and the Unions

Among participants in the recent demonstrations for peace, especially the younger activists, dismay over the position of the unions on the Vietnam war has a way, at times, of spilling over into impatience, even hostility, toward the whole idea of unionism. I share their unhappiness at the way the trade unions have fallen into line behind Johnson’s foreign policy; I agree that there is a real and very difficult problem here for those of us who want to create a widely-based protest against the Vietnam war; yet I want to argue against the tendency to disparage the unions.

It seems strange to have to write a defense of unionism, of justifying collaboration with the union movement. If anything, the shoe ought to be on the other f...