Love, Labor, Loss

Stern, of course, would pick the kinder rendering, for he believes firmly that he is right. Labor needed to be shaken up, and no more harm could come from an AFL-CIO breakup than from the inertia that gripped it, Stern says.

Low numbers speak of the high stakes: Only 12 percent of the American labor force is unionized these days, down from 35 percent three decades ago. Surveys show that Americans want unions but are afraid of how bosses will react, because organizers often are fired illegally for their activities. Workers, Stern says, are devalued, and he is trying to change the way Americans view labor and the economy as a whole.

In the world according to Stern, low-wage workers too often succumb to a form of economic Darwinism. Stern travels the country delivering that message in speeches and rallies. He talks about how the global economy has made things worse, with multinationals competing to find the cheapest labor, minus unions -- the Wal-Mart effect. For workers to thrive, big labor has to act as big business does: Go global, recruit without borders, unionize workers across entire economic sectors.

He has rankled many by calling big labor a "lap dog" for the Democratic Party. Labor, he says, should follow a political agenda that's good for workers, regardless of party.

And he caused a firestorm at the 2004 Democratic National Convention when he said a John Kerry victory would be bad for big labor, would give it a false sense of power, and paper over its fundamental problem of flagging union membership. As it turned out, of course, Kerry lost. Big labor could not muster enough troops -- a fact that also sparked a rethinking in the movement.

Beyond such macro issues, though, Stern has even drawn suspicion just for being who he is. Some old-line, blue-collar unionists are annoyed with his white-collar, Ivy League background. Tom Buffenbarger, leader of the machinists and aerospace workers, virtually spat out the words "Wharton School" in deriding Stern's educational background.

And yet Stern has pushed big labor, challenged it, lined up some of its big names behind him. He has taken the labor movement to the brink of a new era, for better or worse, while an interior dialogue of grief and loss has shaped his leadership, adding volume to an already voluble voice.

'Male, Pale and Stale'

He's in Philadelphia one November day, at the ornate Union League building on Broad Street, about to address the nabobs of the local chapter of the World Affairs Council and introduce them to his vision of the world of labor.

He's come home, in a way, for he attended college here, the University of Pennsylvania. He first joined a union here, back in 1972. And Cassie died here, over at Children's Hospital, which he'd passed on the train ride up from Washington.

"Lot of memories," he's saying in a corridor before his speech. "I actually couldn't ride the train for a while [after Cassie] because it passed right by the hospital."

But that is his internal landscape. Onstage, before a sea of well-appointed Philadelphia business and civic leaders, he is telling the crowd of his life's work, of the question that has vexed him for years and years.

"How is hard work valued and rewarded in America?" He is speaking, as he so often does, for the blue-collar American workers, those folks whose plight outrages him.