Unions gain optimism on political front

Supreme court, taxes, labor policy. Three great reasons to vote against any Democrat, but especially Obama.

The working people need representation, lord knows the corporations do not have our interests at heart. It pains me that our country was once much stronger on labor and unions than it is today. The great wealth and the middle class was made with socialist, labor centric policies of the new deal. Corporate medias demonization of unions as "commie, pinko" orgs has hurt the bargoning power of labor . Its time we honor those that produce wealth in our country again, long live unions.

While it is true that the membership gain of 311,000 reported in 2007 was the first since 1983 that was enough to increase the percent of the workforce in unions, it was within the margin of error of the Current Population Survey. Most of the gain in membership was in the public sector and that the small gain in the private sector came more as a result of slower than usual employment growth. 2007 was a very strange year for union membership numbers. Public employment increased by about 662,000 and public sector union membership increased by about 180,000, while the percent of public employees in unions declined from 36.2 percent in 2006 to 35.9 percent in 2007. In the private sector employment increased by 868,000 while union membership increased by about 132,000. That was enough to push the percent in unions from 7.4 to 7.5. Given both of the above, it is reasonable to speculate that apparent increase is due to statistical and sampling error. In short, that because it is so strange and is within the survey's margin of error, it just didn't happen. I've been following these developments rather closely since the mid 1960's. Almost invariably around Labor Day union officials make pronouncement like Mr. Chafe's about the "beginning of a new upward trend." Then, in January, like Lucy pulling away the football when Charlie Brown tries to kick it, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its annual report on union membership and we learn that the decline continues. At least twice during the modern era of record keeping, since 1983, there has been an increase in union membership. In both instances it was only enough to keep the percent in unions even for a year. Each time the next year's survey found slightly larger than usual decline.