The evidence suggests that when unionism takes pragmatic and progressive positions, it can indeed prosper.
What the Greek organizing committee (ATHOC) was warned about was lethargy, unionism and unrealistic expectations.
The agreement has changed the nature of politics in Northern Ireland and opened a chasm within unionism.
Many nationalists regard Mr Donaldson as the voice of immovable unionism, refusing to compromise or accommodate other traditions.
Companies fostered loyalty to the firm and kept trade unionism at bay by providing for their employees' welfare.
Not only that, they might cost unionism as a whole its political domination.
Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister said such a forum was unlikely to deliver a "lasting advance" for unionism.
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For the achievement of a blueprint for peace also required shifts within unionism.
This has meant that the case for Ulster unionism is going by default.
An anti-agreement faction within Ulster Unionism repeatedly called meetings of its ruling council in a series of attempts to unseat him.
However, Nigel Smyth from the employers organisation, the CBI, said the strike was an example of trades unionism at its worst.
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But in fact he had left West Bengal an economic backwater, largely shunned by foreign investors and a byword for obstreperous unionism.
It was trade unionism that gave him his first chance of advancement, as a senior official of the Inland Revenue Staff Federation.
But the links between unionism and the Orange Order go very deep.
In general, these external factors are a problem for unionism by themselves, but the current state of the NLRA has magnified their effect.
The agreement, and particularly its provisions on sharing government with republicans, paramilitary prisoner releases and reforming the Royal Ulster Constabulary, has deeply divided unionism.
Just as last year's anti-affirmative-action initiative in California set off a wave of similar campaigns across the country, so too Californian anti-unionism has national echoes.
The forces bearing down on unionism are many and strong: two governments, public opinion in Britain, the Irish republic and abroad, and the party leadership.
But several Labour MPs criticised the "attacks" on trade unionism.
The rest of unionism lagged behind, but it moved nonetheless.
Though Mr Trimble is bound to face further pressure from within the ranks of unionism not to compromise too far, he looks genuinely determined to make the agreement work.
Those are the images the candidate wants to stick in people's minds when he talks about his positive, progressive message and track record as a unifier of unionism and nationalism.
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They had, maintained the passer-by, badly let down unionism.
Forcible interventions into immigration were really just forcible interventions into the labor market designed to restrict wage competition, just like unionism, just like mandated 30-hour work weeks or forced retirement or wage floors.
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To deal with unemployment by eliminating monopoly unionism, featherbedding, and inflexibilities in the labor market, and be prepared, where residual unemployment persists, to cope with it locally, placing the political and humanitarian responsibility on the lowest feasible political unit.
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But even if Employee Free Choice becomes law, it is unlikely on its own to indicate any long-term reversal in the decline of unionism, reckons Richard Epstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago who opposes the bill.
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