Labor Movement History

Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein was online to discuss his latest column , which looks at the history of the labor movement. He writes that its decline is as much the story of missed opportunity as it is one of changing political and economic circumstances.

A transcript follows.

About Pearlstein: Steven Pearlstein writes about business and the economy for The Washington Post. His journalism career includes editing roles at The Post and Inc. magazine. He was founding publisher and editor of The Boston Observer, a monthly journal of liberal opinion. He got his start in journalism reporting for two New Hampshire newspapers -- the Concord Monitor and the Foster's Daily Democrat. Pearlstein has also worked as a television news reporter and a congressional staffer.

____________________

Laurel: When one thinks of labor unions, the common image is a blue-collar worker. As each generation acquires more education that their parents did, the fraction of the labor force represented by non-immigrant, blue-collar workers keeps shrinking. So it's kind of natural that workers over 50 would represent the largest part of the unionized labor force.

But since more younger workers are white-collar, why (other than archaic labor laws) isn't labor doing more to recruit 30-year-old college degree office workers, who are sometimes required to work 50-60 hours per week for their 40-hour salary?

Have white-collar employers become so adept at moving jobs around that they can just adopt the Wal-Mart strategy of shutting down any workplace that unionizes?

Steven Pearlstein: That's a good place to start our discussion, because I think it brings up the difficulty of talking about unionism in the context of a white collar, service economy. The templates and the vocabulary most unions bring to this discussion is just outdated, and isn't relevant to an office environment, particularly in industries where there is a good deal of judgment and creativity involved in the work. It may be that workers need a greater voice in setting the working conditions and even minimal pay levels. But what they don't want or need is lifetime job security, or a pay scale that has everyone with the same seniority getting the same, or restrictions on how much they can work if they are in the middle of a big project that needs to be done. They certainly don't want a version of some master contract that covers every company in the industry.

So the trick is for unions to figure out, in those instances, what kind of services workers want and try to meet those needs. They may be collective services, but they might just as well be individual services. They may be more related to the craft than to the company, which is a real back to the future sort of thing, since that is where the union movement really started.

Anyway, food for thought

_______________________

Vienna, VA: US Labor law seeks to remedy the unbalanced power naturally concentrated in employers by protecting organization of unions, collective bargaining, and collective work actions (including strikes). Are there other models for providing employee rights and protections, and what are their advantages and disadvantages compared to the US model?

Steven Pearlstein: Actually, that's a good question. I'm not aware of any.

_______________________

Arlington, VA: Mr Pearlstein:

I regret that an appointment will prevent me from participating in the online today, but I will read the archive. You make several major points today, some of which I think are fair points for discussion. I must say, however, that you lose credibility and perhaps objectivity when you write the four paragraphs that begin with "How did it come to pass...".

As a union lobbyist for five years who is now, for personal reasons, making a transition into high school teaching, I wonder where you have been in terms of monitoring who lobbies for what on Capitol Hill? On behalf of my union, for example, I personally lobbied for health care for all, for higher minimum wages, for consumer protections of various types and against a punitive bankruptcy so-called reform bill. At every turn, my opponents were various sectors of corporate America and the conservative right.

As you can imagine, I can go on at length. I will close by saying that I am rather shocked by the parochialism displayed.

Thank you.

Mary R

Steven Pearlstein: I think we all know that unions have lobbied hard on a number of liberal issues for many years. We didn't just fall off a turnip truck. And yes, those big bad corporate types opposed unions and often prevailed in recent years. First of all, that raises the question of the effectiveness of those lobbying efforts. On health care, for example, the insistance on holding out for everything, while doing nothing to in any way negatively impact existing arrangements of unionized workers, has got us nothing. On the other hand, I think you've all done a piss poor job at making Americans aware of the fact that their right to organize unions has been effectively dismantled by the NLRB and the courts. If they really knew this -- and it requires much, much more effort than the AFL-CIO has put into it-- Americans would be appalled. Why do you think the Wal-Mart campaign has been so successful outside of Wal-mart's home base?

The general labor view is: "we are right, it is just hat the bad guys have outgunned us because they have all the money and the political mojo." My view is that you aren't always right, you've spread yourselves too thin and you've done a bad job at marketing.

_______________________

Charlotte, NC: The days of Unions have exceeded their usefulness for every industry. I have worked for both Union and non-Union companies and see no advantage to organized labor in today's environment.

Work hard, work smart and strive for excellence in the workplace. Choose your employer wisely and stay tuned to the company's performance. A good company rewards good work in every industry. If an employee finds the company failing in any way, he/she has the option to go elsewhere...we've got 50 states to work in.

Unions protect poor performers equally with top performers which is unfair to everyone concerned. Unions protect the employee who simply shows up on time, does what they are told at a pre-determined pace and ensures rivalries within the workplace between management and employees. The Union format of organized labor has actually pushed US jobs overseas, not protect them.

Our legal system protects workers at every level. Beyond that, the individual is entitles to outperform wherever he/she can. If the company that person works for doesn't reward superior performance, I suggest changing companies.

Steven Pearlstein: There is some truth to what you say. But I think that it does not necessarily extend to the bottom rungs of the ladder, where in fact people are taken advantage of. Yes, the best of the best find a way up and out. But we are a rich and generous enough country that we can't deliver a somewhat more comfortable existence to those without the skills or the gumption or the drive to make those difficult leaps, particularly after we have failed to give them a decdent educational foundation. I think you'd be hard pressed to argue, for example, that unionizing janitors in downtown office buildings has been bad for the economy, bad for the janitors, or bad for the economy. I don't even think the building owners and tenants now believe that.

_______________________

New York, New York: Do you think that labor's symbiotic relationship with the Democratic party and labor's failure to shift the party towards the center on social issues, gun control and tort reform has politically and economically undermined union members.

For example, most Americans agree Social Security is in trouble but the liberal agenda of just say no to reform has prohibited the Unions from putting forth a compromise solution that works for everybody.

Steven Pearlstein: Yes, I think there is something to what you say. The early hints of this, of course, came from the Reagan Democrats, so called. Unions need to be more bipartisan, more focused on issues of concern to workers who really need help, and be seen as the real champions of social justice, not a special interest group. And in the eyes of many Americans, that's what they have become.

_______________________

Northern Virginia: Interesting article. I would go one step further: dissolve unions. Union members generally have higher salaries than there otherwise be in a free market. It harms society as a whole: it keeps out potential (non union) members who would be willing to work for less, and it makes the consumer pay for more expensive products made by the union. These higher labor costs are always passed to the consumer.

Thank goodness for globalization. It is forcing all of us to get out of our complacency and to compete. That should apply to any union.

Steven Pearlstein: I agree and I don't. Union members SHOULD have pay that is somewhat above the market -- otherwise, they wouldn't have much to offer, would they. But it is ludicrous that they think they can protect wages that are twice what non-union wages for similarly skilled people are.

Secondly, it is not clear that all of the extra cost of maintaining a unionized workforce is passed on to consumers. It depends, but a case can be made that some of it is passed on to other employees, executive and shareholders.

_______________________

Annandale, VA: Steve-- How would you resolve the current dispute between the AFL-CIO and the several unions, such as SEIU, who want to break away? What do you think has to happen for these warring factions to get together and work on common problems facing all unions?

Steven Pearlstein: I wouldn't resolve it. As I said this morning, I think a good schism is a healthy thing right now. Andy Stern and his friends have got to try to come up with a different model for unionism, and trying to do it within the context of the AFL-CIO will involve so many compromises that it won't work. This is one of those times when competition between differing business models will be in everyone's benefit. It may be messy and uncomfortable for a few years, but in the long run it will be a plus. To argue that by dividing the House of Labor, you will weaken it ignores the fact it can't get much weaker than it has become. Unions are in a death spiral right now, and they need to do something dramatic to pull themselves out of it.

_______________________

McLean, VA: Mr. Pearlstein,

Your recent assessment of the state of organized labor was spot on.

When unions call strikes to assert their positions, they usually end up hurting the consumers most.

It seems to me that labor groups are more interested in protecting their jobs with all of the extraordinary ameneties they receive rather than the health of the companies they work for or even the consumers that feed them.

Time for them to wake up and smell the coffee sold in the cheaper, better, non-union coffee shop across the street.

Steven Pearlstein: This is a pretty standard anti-union view, I have to say. Why, for example, did you bring up strikes? When was the last time you remember a strike? At this point, the problem isn't that there are too many strikes, the problem is that there are too few. Employers know they can get away with anything, which is not a healthy balance.

_______________________

Washington, DC: Regarding your opinion about the break-up of the AFL-CIO - I'm very puzzled. Your analysis of labor's decline is accurate, although a bit simplistic, but how can dividing the labor movement help the situation? Specifically, you must account for the fact that unlike the CIO split in the 1930's, there are no true "core values" holding the dissident groups together. The Teamsters' Hoffa, for instance, has said he will not practice SEIU Stern's most insistent demand which is to limit organizing to a union's "core industry." It appears you have bought into the SEIU spin that the decline of the labor movement means that their version of reform is the only answer. But this ignores the substantial reforms proposed by Sweeney that move very close to what Stern is seeking. But, every time Sweeney moves closer, Stern moves away. If you study the facts, you'll see that is what has occurred. So again, why would you be pulling for a divided labor movement when the divide is not based on principle?

Steven Pearlstein: I think my earlier answer applies here. This is not really about some false choice between organizing or political action. It's about a whole approach to the business of providing services to workers who need it. And the AFL-CIO is so wedded to the past, and so burdened, in a way, by its past successes, that it is in no position at the moment to reform itself from within.

By the way, you are about the tenth person this morning to complain about my simplistic analysis. People who know me accuse me of all sorts of faults, but being uninformed, simplistic, having an unsophisticated mind is generally not among them. Writing a 750 word column about the history and future of the labor movement involves sketching, not painting, and I've tried to sketch the best way I can. But obviously I am constrained by space, which makes it impossible for me to put in the details and the nuance that everyone, including me, would like.

_______________________

Sherman Oaks, California: What bothers me about corporate America is the hypocrisy of their views regarding organized labor. How can it be wrong for employees to organize in support of common interests when business is organized in a multitude of trade and industry associations? Why should business be allowed to act collectively in a variety of ways and insist that each employee must stand alone?

Steven Pearlstein: I'm not sure that's a fair rap. Actually, when it comes to acting together in a business sense, there are serious limits to what companies in the same industry can do together. Politically, not so. But there are no limits to what workers can do politically if they want to? In that case, the legal playing field is pretty even. Obviously, there are fewer employers and they have a lot of money available to them, so they have a financial and organizing advantage.

_______________________

Danvers, MA: The unions were out-competed. That's what missed opportunities look like. The strategy they couldn't match was opening the labor markets to lower priced competition, which used to be a southern US strategy, what is now global labor arbitrage. Managements look at the global difference in labor costs as an opportunity, and the gains from capturing the differential should flow into management compensation, largely. And the actual arb doesn't have to be that big, because if you can get the marginal cost of labor set in China, you've won. You only need the margin. Just like US unions once set the wage rate in non-union shops as you mentioned. The really interesting part of your column is at the end, what to be done? How can labor act to prevent setting the marginal cost overseas? Is it possible? Dare one suggest action by that other big player, "government intervention"?

Steven Pearlstein: I'm not sure what you mean by government intervention?

_______________________

San Francisco, Calif.: Steven,

You make it sound so simple. Thank you.

Having listened to several hundred stories from non union people who are in struggle to get a union on their job, the political climate has contributed to the non enforcement at the NLRB and state level can't be ignored.

I mean here is Bush spending millions on NGO programs overseas to prevent workers from migrating into forced servitude internationally under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and then the Mayor of Chicago is under investigation for kickbacks for steering people into certain jobs. I mean there is no enforcement here at home! We can't give away what we haven't got nationally.

Also, many union workers do work politically in our communities to bring focus to the human rights abuses locally and internationally, we just don't get the Washington Post to put us on the front page.

Maxine Doogan

Steven Pearlstein: Not sure what I can say to that than to plead nolo contendere.

_______________________

Silver Spring, MD: Can you say more about why a vibrant, market-savvy union movement is in everyone's interest? Are German unions good examples of market-savvy unions?

Steven Pearlstein: No they are not, although they're getting better at it pretty quickly, I can say after my trip to Cologne a few weeks ago. But let's not argue using straw men.

_______________________

washingtonpost.com: European Union Bitten by Fear of Free Markets (June 22, 2005)

_______________________

State College, Pa.: How many pilots do you know that make $250,000 a year. Pilots have been taking a beating from the airlines for the past thirty years. Yes there are some and there are some auto workers who make 25,000 a year. But they worked hard to have that. I know your union protects you from repetitive motion injuries. There are column writers who probably make 60,000 a year. The reason the young men on the corner are picked up by homeowners and contractors is that the can get away with paying wages without taxes and Soc, Security and minimum wages.

Steven Pearlstein: Some pilots used to make that amount of money until quite recently. And I should have added that their insistence on maintaining their sacred seniority lists has prevented the merger of airlines which could have saved lots of other workers their jobs and pensions. They have been piggy and you know it.

Of course you are partially right about why the street corner job market has developed. But what if, rather than trying to close them down and get everyone to pay the very high union wage rates, unions had tried to take this in-house, shown some flexibility when it comes to casual, unskilled day work, and tried to legitimize the process by having it be on-book, with some benefits and workers comp and training. Again, this is what happens when you have wage and benefit rates, and restrictive work rules, that create huge, huge gaps between the union world and the non-union market. Unions still think they can use their clout to wipe out the market and dictate wages, benefits and work rules. They have to get over the fact that they can't do that any more and become more market-oriented, and give provide workers and employers with services and benefits that justify a higher income.

_______________________

Goldsboro, NC: It is not so much labor's leaders missing opportunities to organize as the entry of China and India as suppliers of huge amounts of fungible labor in competition with American workers. This increased supply of labor from Asia means that American manufacturing and certain service wages will stagnate and remain so for the foreseeable future. After Greenspan has raised interest rates 9 times and promises a 10th raise it is only the huge supply of Asian labor that is constraining wages and prices and thus holding the yield on the 10 year treasury note at about 4.20%. Developments in technology and the Internet have created a new world with an unlimited supply of labor and thus a countervailing power to labor.

Steven Pearlstein: There is some truth to that, and I've written that myself many times. That's why I think we may need to throw some sand in the gears of free trade at this moment and impose some across the board tariffs on things coming in from China, or require that India open up its markets to U.S. services if they want us to buy theirs.

But taht said, the decline in the U.S. labor movement occured long before China and India and Eastern Europe entered the picture. It began, in fact, when people began moving to Goldsboro, N.C.

_______________________

Arlington, VA: Mr. Pearlstein, first, you mention that traditional views of Union members (the blue collar hiring hall guys sitting around with their lunch boxes waiting to be called up) are on the way out and that on the way in are workers with their lunch boxes standing on the street corner or in a parking lot waiting for day labor employment. Obviously this later image conjures up thoughts of immigrants & trabajores (I'm not sure of the correct spelling). Do you think that the Unions and our labor laws are ready to embrace the immigrant workforce? What do you think are the impediments?

Second, in terms of a switch from the blue collar mill worker to the white collar service employee, do you think that some of our larger service employers will ever embrace employee work councils (like the German model) or will the emphasis on service sector jobs mean that employees will, once again, have little in the way of collection action to protect their rights?

Steven Pearlstein: Immigrants are a big source of whatever growth there is in the union movement. They are a core constituency now.

And yes, it may be that some version of works councils may be the right answer for white collar workers who feel they need more voice in their workplace. I wouldn't mandate them by law, as the Germans do. But as a negotiated model, it has possibilities.

_______________________

Eagles Mere. PA: In answer to Vienna, VA, Germany prided itself on a policy of "co-determination" with employees represented strongly in management decisions affecting labor, but Germany is now shedding this practice because it has overly-hampered managerial flexibility.

I agree with Mr. Pearlstein's comment regarding unions' overconcern with job security. That's a big part of the reason for their decline.

Steven Pearlstein: Overemphasis on job security is a big problem -- thanks for bringing that up.

_______________________

Arlington, VA: Mr. Pearlstein how can the labor movement possibly market one-size-fits-all contracts to a generation that demands merit pay?

Steven Pearlstein: It can't and it shouldn't. The government workers union reaction to the president's recent merit pay proposal is so typical, and so dated. This is precisely the sort of narrow-mindedness and knee-jerk reactionism that turns voters against unions and unionism.

_______________________

State College, Pa: Next time you are up in a commuter airline ask the pilot to show you his pay stub, he could make more working for WalMart, but he loves to fly and hopes to get to the larger airllins some day.

Steven Pearlstein: Yea, maybe he'll fly for Southwest, which pays its top pilots a very nice, upper-middle class salary consistent with the training and hours and skill you associate with such a job.

_______________________

Washington, DC: To the extent that you believe the NLRB and courts have effectively dismantled organizing, what reforms do you think are necessary? Given that the NLRB seems to operate as a political animal that shifts its views with different administrations and that its remedies seem inadequate to discourage employers from waging illegal campaigns against unions, what as a practical matter can be done especially where Congress seems completely uninterested in such reform?

Steven Pearlstein: You've touched on a big problem, for which the unions themselves are not blameless. It used to be that the NLRB was a respected arbiter of labor issues, playing it pretty much down the middle, with a respect for precedent and the rule of law. But over the years, what has developed is that it has taken sides depending on which party is in power, with the unions demanding that it tilt in their favor when Democrats were in power and the Republicans demanding a pro-management tilt when they were in power. Now the tilt has become extreme. Both sides share the blame in this Hatfield-McCoy feud. But is now a travesty that the NLRB has become a wholely owned subsidiary of the National Right to Work Committee. Many of the administrative law judges try to do their best to uphold the law. But they are kicked in the teeth at every turn by the board majority and the general counsel.

_______________________

Washington, D.C. : Steven,

I've enjoyed your columns in the past, but this one is filled with generalities and conventional wisdom that is beneath your usual high standard.

Some unions like the American Federation of Teachers are growing by organizing teachers, professors and other white-collar professionals. The AFT has gained 750,000 members in 20 years of consecutive growth. The engineers union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers has doubled in size in the past five years. Both of these unions have reached out to groups that have never been organized before. AFT has organized thousands of psychologists and dental technicians for example and IFPTE is currently organizing the British Embassy staff here in D.C.

Yes, the labor movement has lost membership, but it has lost membership in areas where our economy has shrunk. The labor laws have been used to club unions down rather than create opportunity for workers. Do you really think it's an even playing field? Don't you think more people would join unions if we had card check like the Canadians and laws that protected workers from intimidation?

Jamie in D.C.

Steven Pearlstein: I agree with everything you say, including that some sort of card check system would be a good idea. Polls show that as much as 40 percent of the working population would chose to join a union if it were a real option.

By the way, I never said that white collar organizing hasn't been going on. But what I'd ask you is if you think it helps the reputation of the union movement when teachers unions continue to hide behind tenure to protect low-performing teachers and oppose merit pay and cling to seniority schemes that deny students access to the best teachers. Unions are not the only reason for the failure of our urban public schools, they aren't even the major reason. But they are a factor and the flexibility they have shown in the last few years, in my opinion, is too little too late.

_______________________

Re: Mary R: C'mon Steve. You can't lay it all on the union.

"On the other hand, I think you've all done a piss poor job at making Americans aware of the fact that their right to organize unions has been effectively dismantled by the NLRB and the courts. If they really knew this -- and it requires much, much more effort than the AFL-CIO has put into it-- Americans would be appalled. Why do you think the Wal-Mart campaign has been so successful outside of Wal-mart's home base?

The general labor view is: "we are right, it is just hat the bad guys have outgunned us because they have all the money and the political mojo." My view is that you aren't always right, you've spread yourselves too thin and you've done a bad job at marketing."

Apparently your view is also that it's up to the union - AND ONLY THE UNION - to get that message out. Nice. Real nice.

It wouldn't kill you to report it. I mean, are you here to report? Or poke at the union? Do your job and report. Just like you expect the union to do.

Steven Pearlstein: I would think unions would consider this a very high priority, yes.

_______________________

Brooklyn, NY: Very interesting discussion. I think sensible discussions about labor are difficult because everyone's right. I've worked in both union and non- union shops; in some cases, the union helped me and in others, they actively hurt me because they were so intent on protecting the more senior workers at everyone else's expense. What I wish is that unions as a whole would stop selling credit cards and concentrate entirely on one or two issues. Forty- seven million Americans have no health insurance and berating people for using health care--the think-tank solution--really isn't the answer. I wish the unions would take some leadership and push for de-coupling employment and health insurance. I think it would give them more credibility instead of this moat-around-the-current-members philosophy. Do you think that that kind of paradigm shift is possible with today's labor leadership?

Steven Pearlstein: Nicely put. And as to your last question, I'm not sure the current AFL-CIO leadership is up to it. They're still too stuck to their past positions and proving they've been right all along, which may or may not be true, but in any case is now irrelevant.

_______________________

Los Angeles, Ca: Thanks for taking questions. During the supermarket strikes out here in California a few years back, a friend of mine commented that unions had outlived their usefulness. She works at a major corporation and enjoys a wonderful benefits program, including TWO retirement plans, retiree medical, LTD insurance, etc. My retort was that if it had not been for unions, she probably would not have such a generous benefits package--I feel it was the unions that fought hard and laid the groundwork for what we have today. Similarly, I feel the decline of union power has resulted in a declining interest on the part of corporate america to fund such benefits for workers. Your thoughts?

Steven Pearlstein: Right on both points. There are a lot of non-unionized middle and upper-middle class people today who are free riders on the hard work of previous generations of union members, myself included. I'm appreciative of that.

_______________________

Arlington: There has been some talk that the dissident unions will reach out to Republicans more. How much support can they realistically expect to get from the GOP, given the anti-union views of this administration and the congressional leadership? Especially if the dissidents try to organize Wal-Mart, a huge GOP contributor. And given that SEIU, the lead dissident, is a famously left-wing public-sector union, not a pragmatic private-sector union like the Teamsters or the Carpenters.

Steven Pearlstein: Good question. What I imagine is a union that is both pragmatic but also takes the moral high ground in trying to work to improve the lives of the people at the bottom of the working ladder, through organizing but also through political action. It would be nice to pick off some Republican support in that effort, if possible.

_______________________

Alexandria, VA: I disagree with the comments that overemphasis on job security is a problem--because -lack- of job security is what keeps non-union workers going at it 50 hours per week or more, and tell a union worker in a one-employer town that job security shouldn't be such a major concern problem. (After all, most Americans don't have the luxury to shop around for an employer, much less a good one, as a previous poster flippantly suggested.)

That being said, I think the responsibility of Andy Stern and other union leaders, along with all workers, is to redefine job security as not being so much about seniority rights but towards work practices and performance that make a difference in company performance.

Steven Pearlstein: Thanks for that.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: "Pilots have been taking a beating from the airlines for the past thirty years." I'd bet most folks would love to take that kind of beating. I am not attacking pilots, but the tired argument that most people throw out when losing perspective.

Steven Pearlstein: There's that view and there's this one....

_______________________

Brooklyn, NY: I disagree profoundly about pilots. They earn nothing compared to the extraordinarily greedy sums the airline execs take for themselves. Furthermore, there are no other professionals, including surgeons, who are so responsible. Pilots routinely hold in their hands the lives of several hundred human beings, not only in the air but also on the ground. In a pure meritocracy, pilots would make the most money of all.

Steven Pearlstein: Let's try this one: Pilots used their leverage during the regulated era to win pay that was well above what similarly skilled and educated people were able to earn. The era of regulation ended, price competition came in, and suddenly those salaries were shown to be unsustainable, along with some mechanics and machinists who were paid like kings not only for doing very skilled stuff, but doing lots of menial work as well. And in time, market forces have eaten away at those "rents," as economists call them, both by forcing unionized airlines to demand concessions and by diverting increasing share of the airline market to non-union airlines. Sure, pilots should make more than flight attendants--nobody is arguing that. And sure, corporate executives are overpaid, as this column has written many times--but two wrongs don't make a right.

_______________________

Burke, VA: It seems there was a lot of union busting that has been going on and little upholding of the rules that protect the right to form unions. Look at meatpacking. It's an unpleasant, dangerous job - but it used to pay a good wage and be less dangerous. Starting in the Eighties the unions were broken and now it's a job with mostly illegal immigrants who won't complain much. The speed of the line has increased and the danger has increased, while the pay has gone way down.

Steven Pearlstein: Sounds like a good target for some good organizing, as well as some good lawyering to expose and punish and hold up to public disapprobation those employers who operate unsafe workplaces. I bet Andy Stern and his crew could have a field day with those guys.

_______________________

Twincities, MN: A more basic question: One of the reasons unions came into existence was to use collective bargaining to improve wage and employment conditions. With the passage of time, I think unions have achieved their objective across the board. Your assessment that they have to reinvent themselves is correct, but what new can they really offer to employees? There aren't many employers left who are exploiting their workers. I would argue that the unions are facing extinction for the simple reason they have outlived their usefulness. Your thoughts?

Steven Pearlstein: There are probably more workers who are taken advantage of than you suggest. And there are even more workers who may feel the need for some greater say in their worklife, beyond narrow questions of pay and benefits. Unions could have a positive role to play for both groups.

_______________________

San Francisco, Calif.: IN response to an earlier question; There is the Employees Free Choice Act that was introduced the second time in Congress April of the this year with 200 house reps and 38 senate sponsors.

This act would bring triple sanctions on to employers who engage in retaliation against worker who exercise our right to form a union on our job.

It would also force mediation and arbitration if a contract is not signed a year after election.

Maxine

Steven Pearlstein: Not sure of the details of the bill, but the question becomes: Why has the labor movement not used its money, its muscle, etc. effectively to get this thing on the political agenda? Just blaming others isn't going to cut it. It IS possible.

_______________________

Detroit, Michigan: You are absolutely right that unions have been stunningly change-averse. And for sure, change, if it is to come at all, must start somewhere. But it seems increasingly clear that if what's needed is to make better unions-I think it is-"fixing" (and/or splitting) the AFL-CIO is a goofy place to start. Indeed, it is likely yet another spurt that dissipates energy and prevents change rather than advancing it.

Like the stock prospectus says, past results are not a guarantee of future outcomes. The conditions that produced the last AFL-CIO split could hardly be more different from those of today. I think that looking to recreate labor's glorious lost past has itself proven a big part of the change-avoidance dynamic. Trying now to cut the AFL-CIO's "foot" to fit it into a long gone "shoe" of oligopolistic industries is a good example of that misguided approach.

Frank Joyce

Steven Pearlstein: Well put, Frank, even if I'm not sure I agree.

_______________________

Indianapolis, IN: You talk about the need for the labor movement to break away from the past and recast its core mission, or objective(s), in order to be a more creative and effective voice. Could you suggest what a couple of those might be...and...to what extent could these be seen as moving the NLRB's role more toward a symbiotic relationship to them?

Steven Pearlstein: Stay tuned for Friday's column. Thanks, folks, this has been a real good discussion.

_______________________

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.