Most of all, they are looking to President Obama to help unions reverse their decades-long slide in power and membership.
The decline in organized labor's power and membership has played a larger role in fostering increased wage inequality in the United States than is generally thought, according to a study published in the American Sociological Review this month.
What did he think of the chances of the reformist Guangdong party boss, Wang Yang, who recently made a strong call for political and economic changes, making it onto the standing committee of the Politburo, the all-important inner circle of power whose membership is being fought over at the top?
After endorsing Vice President Al Gore for president, the union is praising Mr. Bush, hoping his plan, which encourages coal production, will enable it to begin reversing a decline in power and membership that paralleled the long decline in the importance of coal.
If so, that would count as a good result compared with, say, a decade in which the EU fell apart, Turkey grew more polarised and radicalised, the Balkans stayed restless, and civil strife broke out in the southern Caucasus and Moldova.Give it timeThis survey has argued for a best-case result in which the EU goes on using the power of membership to change the countries around it for the better.
By the early 1960s the PKI and other leftist parties had the support of President Sukarno, giving them greater power; PKI membership grew quickly in this period, aided by a hyperinflation and widespread poverty.
Becoming a noted member of the left-wing reformist Oxford University Fabian Society, then at the height of its power and membership, he was there in 1915 when it changed its name to the Oxford University Socialist Society, following a split from the Fabian Society.
It's not that labor unions have regained political power (union membership continues to dwindle and large corporations have more clout in Washington than ever) or that the President is especially weak (no president can pull off a major deal like this if the public isn't behind him).
One of those bodies is likely to be the Security Council, but its voting system, vetoing powers and membership would need to change before it could hope to become effective.
