Harold Meyerson

Those of us who practice or analyze California politics share an enduring conviction about the state. There's coastal California, stretching from the Oregon border to the southern boundaries of Los Angeles, which is liberal and Democratic. And there's inland California -- the Central Valley, the Sierra, the exurbs of Los Angeles and the desert -- which (along with Orange and San Diego counties) remains a bastion of right-wing Republicanism.

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"We are all socialists now," proclaims Newsweek. We are creating "socialist republics" in the United States, says Mike Huckabee, adding, on reflection, that "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff." We are witnessing the Obama-era phenomenon of "European socialism transplanted to Washington," says Newt Gingrich.

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Union organizing is an increasingly global, top-down effort. But card-check legislation could return employees to their central place in the process.

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One sparkling day about 10 years ago, I drove from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara to deliver a talk at a nationwide staff retreat of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union (HERE). I can't recall exactly what I talked about, but I remember distinctly whom I was talking to. The HERE staffers -- there were about 70 of them -- were all corporate researchers, most of them from HERE's locals.

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The labor movement faced few extraordinary struggles during the second half of the 20th century. Now, an intra-union conflict is set to be the most dramatic clash in decades.

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UNITE HERE is splitting apart in a bitter civil war that pits the UNITE side against the HERE side in a vicious, ugly fight. Worse, this battle involves some of the savviest and most dedicated union leaders and staffers ever to work in American labor.

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