Indonesia now has at least 70 national trade unions and as many as 10,000 factory unions.
Last July, garment factory unions won a minimum wage of $45 a month, a first for Cambodia.
The companies, many of which moved to China to lower manufacturing costs and some to avoid unions in their home countries as well, are now being asked to meet a Sept. 30 deadline to make their offices and factories union shops.
Pro-government and pro-factory unions take up a majority of the seats allotted to labor on the national tripartite committee that negotiates minimum-wage increases.
The smell of candy permeates the air inside and outside the factory in Union.
But a few of the factory's union leaders had been anticipating this moment.
Eduardo Cabrera, the factory's union leader admits he has difficulty believing that investors were willing to keep a company going for nine years without making a profit.
"Some people are for joining Russia and others are for staying in Ukraine," said Vladimir Sadovoy, the head of the factory trade union.
Mr. Florio believes that the Democratic Party's traditional base in New Jersey -- factory workers, union stewards, minimum-wage employees and retirees -- is inherently wary of the rich.
In montages and medleys, partly in Yiddish and partly in English, the audience is transported to Ellis Island, the Lower East Side, the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire, union protests, the Holocaust and more.
