We know that none of the “real money” hoarded by organized wealth will trickle down to us. That’s not the point. By taking away our rights to bargain, to negotiate, to discuss our working conditions, to fight for our jobs, to retain our dignity and to bestow hope on our children, organized wealth has left the post-union working class without pride or aspirations. We envy, revere, ogle and parrot the rich but harbor no illusions of ever becoming rich ourselves. We have become — as we were three centuries ago — peasants, beholden totally to the commands and caprices of “lords” who have no concept of how we live, who often wonder why we even bother to live.
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We want you to give up. We know your defeat will not better our hopeless lives. We know that whatever shreds of wealth accrue to your destruction will go straight up the pipe to the lobbyists of K Street and the deposit boxes of Zurich. We know that you will get less, and we will get nothing. We know that, after promises by organized wealth that your sacrifices will save your jobs, you’ll lose your jobs — just as we before you were promised security and screwed the next morning… before breakfast.

From "An Open Letter to Public Employees and Their Unions, From Formerly Unionized Private-Sector Workers" by David Benjamin