Will Economic Recession Kill or Renew Labor Unions?
According to recent interview with John Schmitt, Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research:
MATTHEW PALEVSKY, JOURNALIST: SEIU, with nearly 2 million members, is one of the largest unions in the United States. But SEIU, along with most unions in America, could be facing difficult times. Not only has union membership been declining steadily for over three decades, but the economic uncertainty caused by the current recession could erect new barriers to unionization. To understand the current state of unions in America I spoke with John Schmitt, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
JOHN SCHMITT, SENIOR ECONOMIST, CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND POLICY RESEARCH: If you go back to the end of the 1970s, about 25 percent of all workers in the United States were in a union at the time, and not coincidentally, about 25 percent of the workforce was also manufacturing back then. So we've seen two really big changes over the last 30 or so years. On the one hand, we've had a big decline in manufacturing. And on the other hand, we've also seen a big decline in unionization in the country. They're related, [but] one doesn't necessarily imply the other. But the big decline in the main base of unionization, which is manufacturing, has certainly hit unions hard. Meanwhile, we haven't created as many union jobs in the service sector, which has been growing a lot, and that's been part of the problem too. I think that the recession is both a challenge and an opportunity for the labor movement. It's a challenge because it's going to put the squeeze more on workers, it's going to lead to layoffs, and it's going to lead to economic pessimism...click to continue.
