Why Unions? cont.

 

Today, there are about five times as many unionized actors in the country as unionized coal miners.

Given some of the most obvious indicators, you might almost believe them. Union membership is down from a high of one-third of the work force in 1960 to a low of 12.9 percent in 2003. The news is filled with stories of failed strikes and contract give backs.

Millions of people are working at Wal-Mart and McDonalds in dead-end minimum wage jobs with no union in sight. Even the rallying cry of the 1886 movement for an eight-hour day - “Eight hours for work, Eight hours for rest, Eight hours for what we will” - sounds almost as radical today as it did more than a century ago.

Furthermore, it sometimes feels like labor doesn’t know which side it should be on.
When the United Automobile Workers come out against new auto emission air quality
standards, or the construction unions favor a pipeline in the Alaskan wilderness, or you
look at the small numbers of women and people of color in top union leadership positions, it’s enough to make one wonder.


But dig below the surface, and we discover another reality - one that transcends the
self-interested policies of corporate America and the flaws and vulnerabilities of labor itself.

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