Employment Labo Subcommittee on Health

The Future of Union Organizing Employment Labo Subcommittee on Health

Publisher Marketing: This morning we will broadly examine the future of union organizing. It is no secret the number of workers electing to join a union has declined sharply in recent decades. Since 1983, the share of all workers belonging to a union has dropped from roughly 20 percent to less than 12 percent. Today, fewer than 7 percent of private sector workers are union members. There has been an unhappy story, even in this recovery, for the middle class. In the early days of this economic recovery, for every 1 dollar of growth that went to higher wages for America's workers $70 went to corporate profits. The evidence broadly suggests that when people engage in collective bargaining that those results are considerably better. On the average, members of unions earn 27 percent more than those who don't belong to a union for similar work. Members of unions are 28 percent more likely to have health care benefits provided for them at work. They are 64 percent more likely to have a pension plan when they retire. These are the elements of middle class success. AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka, recently warned the labor movement is in crisis. Gary Chaison, an industrial relations professor at Clark University, told the New York Times unions are thrashing around looking for answers, and there is a sense that this is a make or break time for labor. Either major changes are done, or we will be too late to resuscitate the labor movement.