The Buffalo News, May 15, 2010, Saturday

The Buffalo News

May 15, 2010, Saturday

The Buffalo News

Squeeze tightens on workers, author says
Labor forum hears of rise in insecurity, decline in unions' role

By Matt Glynn
NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER

Steven Greenhouse's account of intense economic pressures on American workers hit bookstores in early 2008, just as the recession was taking hold.

The New York Times reporter's book, "The Big Squeeze," detailed the often agonizing struggles working people faced with wages, health benefits, pensions and job security.

Greenhouse said the conditions he analyzed have not gotten any easier since then, with unemployment high, wages flat and less job security. "My book says that in most of the last decade, things were tough for workers. But now things are tougher still."

Greenhouse has covered workplace and labor issues for the Times since 1995.

He spoke Friday in Depew at a conference presented by the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations celebrating the 75th anniversary of the National Labor Relations Act.

Greenhouse reflected on the fact that only about 7 percent of private sector workers in the United States belong to a union, down sharply from decades past.

(Buffalo Niagara's private sector union membership is far higher, at 16.5 percent last year, according to Unionstats.com)

Greenhouse said some might think that in tough economic times, workers would flock to join unions. But he said the trends do not point that way.

Some theorize that workers already feel insecure about their employment, and worry that organizing efforts could put their jobs at risk, he said.

Greenhouse says he believes employers and unions alike have played a role in the overall decline in private-sector union membership.

On the company side, some employers aggressively resist organizing, hiring anti-union consultants, holding meetings with workers to criticize unions or threatening to close a plant if the union prevails, he said.

John Dunlop, a U.S. labor secretary under President Ford, found in a study that one in 18 union supporters in organizing drives was penalized, through firing, demotion or worse shifts, Greenhouse said.

"I do think many employers have gotten much more aggressive in fighting unions, and too many of them break the law," he said. "And I think that's certainly a factor that's holding back unionization drives."

But a lot of other companies use "generous, good, wise, sensitive, empathetic human resources strategies" that provide good wages and benefits, and address workers' needs on family and medical leave, he said. "They try hard to make their workers happy, and a lot of those workers say, "I don't need a union, my company treats me very well.'‚"

He cited Costco, which is 15 percent unionized.

"The 85 percent of Costco workers who are not unionized are in no ways rushing to unionize because they have it so good."

After five years, a typical Costco worker makes about $50,000, including such factors as a 401(k) match, he said.

Greenhouse said union leaders and organizers are also part of the reason for the decline in private sector membership.

In the 1930s, when the National Labor Relations Act was passed, unions were "inspiring," Greenhouse said. "People were excited about them; people paid attention to them; people cared about them."

"I contrast that with today, where a lot of people don't care about unions, a lot of people are antipathetic to unions, a lot of newspaper editors aren't concerned about unions and don't want to assign stories about unions," he said.

Greenhouse said he has spoken to many young people who don't know much about unions or aren't enthusiastic about them.

"If the role of unions is to do a great job representing workers and organizing more workers, then they're not doing a very good job in attracting workers, in mobilizing workers and inspiring workers," he said.

Greenhouse said he felt the "Justice for Janitors" campaign driven by the Service Employees International Union was effective because it targeted low-wage workers "who are largely invisible, who have no one pulling for them."

Many community and religious leaders were eager to support the cause, he said.

"I think the more unions portray themselves as, and seek to put themselves forward as, a social justice movement, I think the better they're going to do," he said.

Greenhouse said some people tell him he should be more critical of unions because so many unionized industries in the United States are in trouble.

"I tell them that in some ways, unions are a victim of their own success," he said.

Steelworkers, autoworkers, rubber workers all did well from the 1950s into the 1970s, but in recent decades, overseas competition had radical impacts on those industries, he said.

"I think that's one reason why some unionized industries have been hurt more and lost more jobs than nonunion industries, because they have generally been the ones hit hardest by global competition," he said.

Friday's event was co-sponsored by Region 3 of the National Labor Relations Board and the New York State Bar Association's Labor and Employment Law Section.

Attendees included Mark G. Pearce, a Buffalo labor lawyer recently sworn in as a member of the NLRB in Washington, D.C.