Clearly, some quarters of the clergy are getting religion on labor. This stuff is happening faster than anybody can organize it. Almost everywhere we go, there's a core group of folks who are interested in renewing these relationships. That is a remarkable turn in the religion-labor convergence. It is also remarkably late, considering that the de-industrialization of American began roughly two decades ago and workers have been losing ground ever since.
History points to a few answers.
The tapering off of ties between religion and labor began in the 1950s, largely as a byproduct of success. With the great organizing campaigns behind them, there was simply less for religion and labor to do as a coalition. They went separate ways. There was not only a tapering off but also a falling out. During the 1960s, the Vietnam War was a harbinger of clashes to come, between mainstream labor's hard-hat foreign policy and the romantic internationalism of many church leaders.