ANALYSIS: Labor unions - AFL-CIO rolls the dice with Web PR initiative. The AFL-CIO is betting heavily on an Internet portal that would create an online community of online workers. Steve Lilienthal looks inside the union hall of the 21st century

Shortly after John Sweeney became president of the AFL-CIO in 1995, an open letter from labor ally Thomas Geoghegan to the new labor leader was published in The American Prospect and contained ideas on how to revive the movement. Done in the style of David Letterman’s ’Top 10’ lists, suggestion number one was ’Understand Media.’