A strong union is the heart and soul of the middle class

By Ed Muir

We're at the tail end of a unique economic recovery. During this recovery, the number of Americans without health insurance increased. The number of people living in poverty increased. Wage growth for most workers was flat. But, at the same time, corporate profits increased at a greater rate than in any recovery since World War II. If you're not wealthy, odds are the recovery has passed you by. Partly, this is because the middle class has lacked the power to stand up for itself in the political arena and the workplace.

A decline in union power helps explain why this has happened. This weakening of unions is the direct result of a class warfare waged by conservative and corporate forces. The Bush administration's National Labor Relations Board, for example, rather than help workers, creates rules to deny many the right to form a union and makes it much harder to organize those workers who keep that right. And employers furiously oppose organizing.

In a recent campaign at a hospital, management required nurses to attend meetings with anti-union speakers. Nurses were called into follow-up, one-on-one meetings with supervisors. Internal communications carried messages attacking the union. And a team of top management representatives were flown in to hold individual meetings where each nurse was asked where she stood. Management even threatened to cut support to charities whose religious leaders called for employer fairness in the run-up to the election.

The nurses stood tall and they have a union, but it was a fight. In fact, an entire industry is dedicated to helping companies make these fights, and the battles can be even tougher. About two workers from every 100 on a job with an organizing drive can expect to be fired for advocating for their rights under the law.

We're seeing these tactics in the public sector as well, even on campuses. Gov. John Corzine had to come to the campus of Rutgers University to deliver the message that workers need not worry about university management opposition to unionization. And in Wisconsin, the AFT has fought to give public higher education faculty the right to organize. But the Republican leadership of the Wisconsin House has not let the legislation come to a vote. And at private colleges, management holds greater power. The refusal of management at NYU and University of Pennsylvania to recognize graduate employee unions is one example. The struggle at Pace University to get a first contract for adjunct faculty is another.

Politicians who stand up for working families face a backlash. After Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado announced an executive order to give representation rights to state workers in Colorado, the Denver Post printed a front page editorial calling him "Jimmy Hoffa" and a "bag man" for the unions. And corporate-funded anti-union front groups like Americans for Prosperity are threatening ballot initiatives in Colorado and Michigan to pass what's called a "Right to Work" measure—a measure that fundamentally undermines the strength of unions by allowing individual workers to opt out on paying their fair share of union dues to support bargaining.

All of these battles are important in their own right. They also are a prologue to the battle in November 2008 and beyond to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which will level the playing field for union organizing in the private sector. This is a tough fight. But if we're going to make sure that future economic recoveries don't leave most of us and our children behind, we're going to have to be the ones who win these battles.

Ed Muir is an associate director of research at the AFT.