LAT op-ed: Stronger unions mean a stronger middle class, but joining a union now a risk, not a right

[DeepModem Mom]

Stronger unions mean a strong middle class
Safeguarding access to unions ensures a more prosperous society.
By Harley Shaiken
(HARLEY SHAIKEN is a professor specializing in labor and the global economy at UC Berkeley.)
February 17, 2007

POLLS TELL US that 58% of eligible workers would join a union if they could, yet union membership in the private sector plummeted to 7.4% in 2006, a record low.

What explains this yawning gap? The fact that, for many Americans, joining a union has become a risk rather than a right. According to the 2005 National Labor Relations Board's annual report, 31,358 people were disciplined or fired for union activity. The result has been a chill on union organizing.

The Employee Free Choice Act, introduced in Congress this month, seeks to create a thaw. What the act does is simple: It allows workers to form a union if a majority of employees in a workplace sign up for one, short-circuiting an employer-dominated campaign and an additional vote. It also provides meaningful penalties for violating workers' rights and ensures that collective bargaining will result if workers choose a union.

Shrinking union membership affects everyone. Unions paved the way to the middle class for millions and pioneered benefits such as paid pensions and health insurance. Now labor's sliding numbers are contributing to the squeeze on the middle class. During a period of robust economic growth and record corporate profits, only those at the very top of the heap are enjoying a higher standard of living.

Worker productivity jumped by a record 20% between 2000 and 2006, yet real wages (pay adjusted for inflation) edged up an anemic 2%. Meanwhile, fewer workers are getting employer-based health insurance or pensions. Even Alan Greenspan, before retiring as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, told Congress in 2005 that he found growing inequality of income and wealth in the U.S. "very disturbing."...

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-shaiken17feb17,0,7318521.story?track=mostemailedlink

[CountAllVotes]

1. no, joining and belonging to a Union in America

means you are a real American! :patriot:

:kick:

[DeepModem Mom]

2. daylight kick