Notes From the Winter of Our Dreams

Developing campaigns for parity and social welfare are examples of what is meant by the struggle not only to reform but, to transform social policy within the U.S. To achieve advanced social welfare and to achieve parity would require fundamental shifts in social policy that would benefit all within our society. These shifts are not abstract but are composed of dozens of linked reforms. Specific labor struggles will increasingly be related to political demands placed on the state by the labor movement and its allies, such as the movement for national health insurance. Further discussion is needed about the struggle for social welfare, the struggle for parity, and their relationship to the struggle of labor. We need to work to understand the ways in which this process will develop, and root our activism in ensuring the shortterm approximation and long-term realization of such evolving human value commitments as are expressed in the human, social and economic rights adopted by the United Nations.