IT'S TOUGH to exaggerate the scale of attacks on organized labor today--or the urgency of organizing an effective response from the union rank and file.

Just six months after labor took to the streets alongside the Occupy movement to protest corporate greed, social inequality and the domination of politics by big money, unions are once again on the defensive--from bipartisan legislative attacks on public-sector unions to the attempt by Corporate America to crush labor in its last remaining bastions in private industry.

The message from big business and its political counterparts couldn't be clearer. Unlike in the past, when employers usually asked for concessions on a temporary basis, workers now are expected to swallow a deep and permanent cut in their standard of living in order to enable U.S. capitalism to recover from its worst economic crisis since the 1930s.

And if workers don't like it? Someone else is waiting to take their jobs for even less money.