Let them try striking. I think there are enough people on our side who believe in the war who will cross their lines and fill in their positions. I know that I, for one would work a shift above and beyond my current job to do this. I cannot believe these monsters would betray their country like this and refuse our men and women the comfort of getting letters and calls from home. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.
For the first time in years, rank-and-file members are feeling good about their unions’ future. At long last, it seems possible to reverse the disastrous plunge in membership, from 23% of the nation’s workforce in 1980 to 13.9% today. True, union density in the private sector has fallen to 9.4%, its lowest point in nearly 65 years, but finally there are some signs that unions have started growing again.
So Why the Huge Defeats?
Most members probably don’t realize that unions lost more than half of the NLRB representation elections held in fiscal years 1995-98 — 5,907 out of 11,131. In fact, unions haven’t won more than 51.2% of those elections in any single year since 1980.
During the same 1995-98 period, the figures for decertification elections, in which unions were thrown out by their own members, were even worse. Unions were defeated in 1,268 out of 1,834 such elections, resulting in a 31% win rate and the loss of 47,358 members.
Surely, these figures should have set off alarm bells, but AFL-CIO leaders haven’t even acknowledged them. Instead, they point out that organized labor gained 265,000 members in 1999 and claim that unions have finally turned the corner after decades of decline. But 65,000 of those 265,000 were new members of the National Education Assn., not affiliated with the AFL-CIO. Another 74,000 joined the Service Employees International Union after it won a statewide card-check victory for California home care and nursing home workers.
In their speeches and official publications, AFL-CIO leaders only talk about victories and never mention defeats.