Buffalo Business News Article
Published Friday, Oct. 19, 2007
Author outlines the decline of union membership
by Thomas Hartley, Business First
It is said that the middle class sprang from 20th century gains of the working class. A quarter century ago, auto workers, steel workers, Teamsters, government employees, teachers and other organized labor groups accounted for more than one-third of the American workforce. But today, at a mere 12 percent, union membership is a shadow of its former self. The future is uncertain. Some people even question the relevancy of unions.
"A powerful labor movement that once moved workers into the middle class is now powerless to prevent people from falling out of it," author Philip Dine writes in "State of the Unions" (McGraw-Hill). Dine's book, which arrived in bookstores in October, documents the fall of organized labor and its potential rebirth just as thousands of Western New York auto workers and tens of thousands more workers across the country have seen their jobs disappear.
In recent years, the United Auto Workers union has been drained of hundreds of thousands of members. Once the most powerful of unions, the UAW now ranks 12th with about 538,448 members. Attention has been drawn to the plight of industrial unions like the UAW, but Dine points out that as their membership falls, the labor movement is building strength in the education, government, service and health sectors. In fact, the National Education Association is the largest U.S. union with 2.7 million members. Second is the Service Employees International Union with 1.5 million members.
Dine says the future of the U.S. labor movement lies in the non-industry sectors which hold a major advantage over their blue-collar counterparts that are losing members as jobs are shipped overseas. "Unlike manufacturing, service jobs are not going anywhere, " Dine said. "You can't export or outsource cleaning a motel room in Chicago or Buffalo, or health care or nursing home workers. Those jobs may be low-paid and have high turnover rates, but they are staying and that makes them important. A lot of unions are focusing on them."
Case in point: The UAW has targeted dealers and other casino workers in Atlantic City and the union's Region 9, which is based in Amherst, has had success organizing some of the largest gambling resorts on the Boardwalk.
"The struggle is uphill, but there are hopeful signs," says Dine, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-nominated Washington-based reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. "First, there are some propitious developments amid the gloom. Though the congressional campaign of 2006 represented a missed opportunity for labor to alter the national discussion, the election results reflected underlying shifts in attitudes that could prove significant," he said. "There was a sense among voters that the pendulum has swung too far from the average person, accompanied by a rise in the share of workers wanting to join a union." Second, Dine writes, is the fact that unions are engaging in activities that could help turn the tide in membership.
"Among them is Working America, an AFL-CIO creation that in three years has enlisted 1.6 million members who have no workplace union to join but want to fight for good jobs and a just economy," he wrote.
These new union members are recruited by door-to-door campaigns conducted strategically enough that two of every three people end up joining." Dine views his subject from a national perspective, but much of what he sees also applies to Western New York, he said in a recent interview. Having lost much of its power, organized labor must adapt to the new world order if it hopes to survive.
Disagreement over strategy in the AFL-CIO's leadership ranks led in 2005 to creation of a breakaway rival, the Change to Win federation. The coalition of five unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), advocates an aggressive organizing strategy.
"If the labor movement does revitalize itself, it won't be because its leaders have discovered a magic formula or because the officials in Change to Win prove themselves smarter than those in the AFL-CIO, or vice versa," Dine writes. "It will be because unions, having strengthened themselves internally and having honed their skills, are able to take advantage of promising trends and developments.
"It will be because labor is out telling its story in a way that captures imagination, evokes a sense of mission and achievement, and makes clear why a robust union movement is not only relevant but in the public interest," he states.
All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Book
-
RSS Feed