Will US Workers Protest the Collapsing Economy?

Driving home late last night from school I heard an interesting story on the BBC about how GM and the United Auto Workers are working together to submit a plan to the government in order to qualify possibly for additional bailout funds.  I can't find the exact link on-line, but what I was struck by was the comments by the UAW spokesperson who sounded rather mystified as he described what he felt was a collaborative effort by labor and management to figure out how to save the company from total collapse.  The BBC interviewer pushed him - have you ever worked together like this before?  how does it feel? - etc. etc.  And he was pretty frank: I've never seen such economic disaster in my lifetime, and yes, some workers are definitely going to go, but momentarily at least we're in this together with GM and workers' sentiments range from usual distrust and hostility to fear to willingness to go about this differently.  (If I may paraphrase.)  It would have been nice to hear some similar reflection from corporate, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here!

The other memorable moment in the report was its opening - a roar and yelling from protesting workers being laid off at a UK auto plant.   Their cries keep going through my head today; as I walked to the train this morning, I wondered, why don't American workers strike more?

I don't study labor and I've never been in a union, so I'm a little fuzzy on how our protest actions match up to other countries.  Conventional and scholarly wisdom is that we're schooled by labor in Europe and developing countries such as those in Eastern Europe or South America.  Surely this article from the weekend on global unemployment as our newest biggest national security threat intimates as much. But a totally unscientific googling of "labor workers protest 'United States'" turned up a handful of stories about workers' protesting labor regulations, work conditions, discrimination and exploitation.  So now I'm wondering - how come I never hear about any of this?  Is the reporting localized?  Is there a media bias against reporting on worker protest?  I can't imagine GE-owned NBC, MSNBC and the other corporate conglomerates being all that interested in letting the American people know about labor organizing.  Or are these stories really idiosyncratic and isolated? Am I just clueless?

I don't know...unions finally grew for the first time in 20 years in 2007, and now's certainly a better time than most to try to organize workers.  And remember the Republic Window workers who organized last December, with the support of President-Elect Obama?  Activists and academics (including an alum of my school) are split on whether or not their efforts will inspire others.

What do you think?  What's your experience with unions, worker organizing, etc.?  What do you think are the possibilities for worker protests, labor organizing and union growth at this terrible point in time?