Labor may be down, but it's not out
NY Daily News
Labor may be down, but it's not out
By HARLEY SHAIKEN
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
Labor is on the ropes. Fewer than one in 12 private-sector workers belongs to a union, and the numbers continue to slide. Tensions over this dismal statistic fueled the recent fracture of the AFL-CIO in Chicago on its 50th anniversary.
Have unions become an anachronism? Just the opposite is true.
At a moment when American workers are under unprecedented pressure from wages to health care - not to mention pensions - we'd have to invent unions if we didn't already have them.
Unions provide the highway to the middle class for millions of American workers. Today the union wage advantage is considerable: an average $781 a week for members compared with $612 for everyone else. And millions of nonunion workers enjoy higher wages and benefits because of the "union threat." Still, corporations in our much vaunted 21st century economy are increasingly employing 19th century labor relations strategies.
This isn't just bad for workers, it's bad for the economy. In the past, unions forged the link between rising productivity and improved wages. Better wages fueled a virtuous cycle of economic growth and jobs.
If all this is true, why is union membership on the skids? A lot of factors are at play, but for millions of Americans it comes down to this: Try to join a union and risk losing your job. We've developed a serious democracy deficit in the workplace: More than 50% of workers tell pollsters they would like to join a union, while fewer than 8% are members.
How can unions turn the situation around? The key is bringing together innovative strategies with new urgency. Three areas stand out.
First, organizing. New members buttress the present strength and future vitality of labor. The UAW has shown it can organize auto parts workers, a sector where the heat of the global economy is more like a blowtorch; the SEIU has brought together the weakest and most marginal workers, such as nursing home workers, and given them hopes of joining the middle class.
Second, politics remains central. More than one-third of federal workers are organized, a fact that reflects good organizing, but also a 1962 edict by President John F. Kennedy that allowed it.
Third, labor needs to be part of a broad social movement. The AFL-CIO has signed up almost 1 million nonunion people in the past year in a new organization called Working America to express their political views; the teachers unions in New York are working with ACORN to unionize more than 50,000 home day care providers, and UNITE HERE, the hotel and apparel workers' union, has become a powerful voice on immigration reform.
There is some good news for labor. One of four workers in New York State is a union member, and that percentage slightly increased last year. The bad news, of course, is that national decline ultimately pulls the bright spots down with it.
A democratic society depends on checks and balances. Labor provides both the impetus for economic success and the balance to ensure that ordinary people share in it.
Harley Shaiken is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in labor and the global economy.
Link to Article Source
Labor may be down, but it's not out
By HARLEY SHAIKEN
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
Labor is on the ropes. Fewer than one in 12 private-sector workers belongs to a union, and the numbers continue to slide. Tensions over this dismal statistic fueled the recent fracture of the AFL-CIO in Chicago on its 50th anniversary.
Have unions become an anachronism? Just the opposite is true.
At a moment when American workers are under unprecedented pressure from wages to health care - not to mention pensions - we'd have to invent unions if we didn't already have them.
Unions provide the highway to the middle class for millions of American workers. Today the union wage advantage is considerable: an average $781 a week for members compared with $612 for everyone else. And millions of nonunion workers enjoy higher wages and benefits because of the "union threat." Still, corporations in our much vaunted 21st century economy are increasingly employing 19th century labor relations strategies.
This isn't just bad for workers, it's bad for the economy. In the past, unions forged the link between rising productivity and improved wages. Better wages fueled a virtuous cycle of economic growth and jobs.
If all this is true, why is union membership on the skids? A lot of factors are at play, but for millions of Americans it comes down to this: Try to join a union and risk losing your job. We've developed a serious democracy deficit in the workplace: More than 50% of workers tell pollsters they would like to join a union, while fewer than 8% are members.
How can unions turn the situation around? The key is bringing together innovative strategies with new urgency. Three areas stand out.
First, organizing. New members buttress the present strength and future vitality of labor. The UAW has shown it can organize auto parts workers, a sector where the heat of the global economy is more like a blowtorch; the SEIU has brought together the weakest and most marginal workers, such as nursing home workers, and given them hopes of joining the middle class.
Second, politics remains central. More than one-third of federal workers are organized, a fact that reflects good organizing, but also a 1962 edict by President John F. Kennedy that allowed it.
Third, labor needs to be part of a broad social movement. The AFL-CIO has signed up almost 1 million nonunion people in the past year in a new organization called Working America to express their political views; the teachers unions in New York are working with ACORN to unionize more than 50,000 home day care providers, and UNITE HERE, the hotel and apparel workers' union, has become a powerful voice on immigration reform.
There is some good news for labor. One of four workers in New York State is a union member, and that percentage slightly increased last year. The bad news, of course, is that national decline ultimately pulls the bright spots down with it.
A democratic society depends on checks and balances. Labor provides both the impetus for economic success and the balance to ensure that ordinary people share in it.
Harley Shaiken is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in labor and the global economy.
Link to Article Source
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 at 10:51.
