Labor Day reflections – are unions passé?

[hue]

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/22626.aspx#.TnKfpDI2agw.facebook

Labor unions may be under siege, but equalizing force they provide still necessary, says labor law expert at Washington University in St. Louis

Labor Day may celebrate the historical contributions of the American labor movement, but the future of the movement is in question.

“Unions are under siege,” says labor and employment law expert Marion Crain, JD, the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.

“In the public sector, governors seeking to slash budgets are de-authorizing state labor laws that govern the organizing and bargaining rights of state employees. In the private sector, both the federal legislation that supports union action and the administrative body that enforces the law are under attack. Union density is on a dramatic downswing.”

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Is keeping a working democracy passe?

Because you really can't do that if all the power is in the hands of a few.

[4nic8em]

2. I don't know, but here's an idea...

Why don't we ask the 25,000 Nurses who are going on STRIKE tomorrow in California...?

[hue]

3. The author Crain concludes they are more necessary than ever

"Wealth and income inequality continues to be a struggle for unions.

“Wage inequality — the gap between the highest income and lowest income workers within demographic groups, controlling for education and other factors — has not been higher since the Great Depression,” Crain says.

“New research suggests that increases in wage inequality are closely linked to the decline in union membership and power. Clearly, American workers need unions for the vital role they play as an equalizing force in the modern labor market.”

[applegrove]

4. Unions are to increase upward mobility in a way that capitalism, on its own, does not. Same

as corporations.