Without more unions, without a militant, politically independent and class-conscious working class, any gains in regards to healthcare, pay, and other necessary reforms will be attacked with the utmost scrutiny by the ruling class. The bourgeoisie will declare such reforms a failure despite its successes, horrendously attack it and look only at its faults. It will undo such progress, privatize, and fool the masses into loving the fact that they are essentially being robbed. 
Reforms can come in our current society only by the ruling class, particularly by the liberal bourgeoisie, making concessions to the workers who threaten independence from the two party system. Political movements are de-radicalized by the democrats and turned into a reluctant concession out of fear at best, or totally destroyed by the henchmen of the bourgeoisie at worst. 
Political radicals and leaders who were persecuted by the ruling class in life are canonized, turned into harmless icons and stripped of their radical message by that same ruling class after death. By owning the mainstream media, which are in essence for-profit institutions, the ruling class shapes public opinion. It scorns reform, and fools the masses into hating that while benefits the overwhelming majority of society and embracing that which only benefits the top 1%. 

“Freedom of press” is our slogan too, but their “freedom of press” is subject to the domination of those with capital, those who own the earth, and those who wish to continue and defend this exploitative system, giving the opposition not an ounce of real criticism. 

Democracy at work, along with the grand notions of equality that founded the liberal republics are shaken off and dismissed as ‘socialism’. So long as capital rules, so long as the leftover surplus produced by 100,000 is dictatorially owned by, and given to a tiny minority consisting of 10-20 people in board rooms, so long as there are oppressor classes and private property, slogans of “democracy, equality, liberty” will be just that- slogans. 

Tell me, what liberty is enjoyed by the homeless person, the unemployed, by those who toil 50 hours a week and still live in hunger and poverty, who live in constant fear of losing their job, their home, their food. What liberty is that? True liberty can only exist where there is no systematic exploitation of one person over another, where there is no unemployment, homelessness or poverty. True liberty can only be attained not through formal declaration but by a fight against the oppressors and exploiters of the earth! 

True liberty can exist only in a socialist society, transforming formal declarations of the rights of man, of human rights, from mere formal recognitions and into material reality. True liberty can only exist where there is no state, where there is no ruling class. Onward to socialism!