Labor Day, 2006
LABOR UNIONS are more than just ``the folks who brought you the weekend," as the bumper stickers say. A union contract may be the best bulwark against the widening income gap afflicting America even as worker productivity climbs.
According to research from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, unionized workers earn on average $1.52 an hour more than those in similar occupations without union representation, which works out to roughly $3,200 a year (the study controlled for experience, industry, education, and region). The benefit is even more pronounced at the bottom of the income scale and among low-skilled workers.
And yet the number of people belonging to a union continues its precipitous decline. The percentage of American workers covered by collective bargaining agreements fell from about 26 percent in 1978 to about 14 percent in 2005. Not surprisingly, this period also marked a decline in real wages, which -- with the exception of the boom in the late 1990s -- haven't kept up with inflation since 1973. Even in high-income Massachusetts, the median hourly wage adjusted for inflation fell close to 5 percent between 2003 and 2005.
The numbers translate into a generalized anxiety about job security and the rapidly changing industrial landscape. In a poll of 2,000 workers by the Pew Research Center, majorities thought American work life is worsening, as measured by job stress, health and pension benefits, and company loyalty.
Some union activists, and several Democratic politicians, see opportunity for the 2006 mid-term elections in this unease. And a convenient target for their organizing is
The campaign makes sense because Wal-Mart is where the jobs are; it's an opportunity to organize 1.3 million nonunion workers. And the company has become a bête noire for all manner of aggressive environmental and labor practices.
But Wal-Mart is a determined foe. It did not hesitate to shut down a store in Quebec, Canada, putting hundreds out of work, when the UFCW got uncomfortably close to forming a union there.
And voters have complex feelings about the company. Democrats love the bargains as much as anyone, and employees don't like to think they are patsies. Indeed, workers vote with their feet: When Chicago aldermen blocked a Wal-Mart from opening inside the city limits last year, it simply moved one block over the border into suburban Evergreen. In January, 25,000 people, mostly from Chicago, applied for 325 jobs at the Evergreen store.
Wal-Mart says it pays an average of $10 an hour, but makes up for low wages with low prices. From this perspective, it all balances out: a low standard of living, maybe, but low costs, too -- as long as families shop at Wal-Mart. ``All of our customers rely on Wal-Mart to help them live more affordably," says a company spokesman.
Wal-Mart claims its low prices saved the average family $2,300 last year. Which is great, until you compare it to that $3,200 premium unskilled workers could make if they had a union shop.
