Unions can thrive, say labor leaders

As the home of Eugene V. Debs, considered the father of the labor movement, Terre Haute annually welcomes labor leaders from around the world for an award banquet in Debs' memory.

Once a year, the eyes of organized labor from around the world are on Terre Haute, a city with a rich labor history.

But Debs, the feisty Socialist politician who ran for president five times, would be disappointed that the labor movement lost some of its steam in the latter part of the 20th century, says Charles King, executive secretary of the Eugene V. Debs Foundation.

"There is real reason for concern," King says. "Even though union membership is on the increase, the proportion of the work force that is unionized is less than it's been in the past 70 years or so."

A recent report by the National Priorities Project and Jobs With Justice says 74 percent of the jobs with the most growth won't enable a family to pay its bills.

The growth jobs over the next decade will be among child care workers, cashiers, waiters and waitresses and teachers' aides, the report says.

Nearly half of those jobs -- 46 percent -- pay less than half of a livable wage, which National Priorities Project defines as $32,185 per year for a family of four.

But Debs, even though he would be concerned with the current problems facing labor unions, was the eternal optimist, King says. He would be excited at the prospect of bringing the organized labor movement into the new century.

"I think he would be concerned that the unions themselves really be out for social justice -- one for all and all for one -- that kind of thing," King says.

In the new century, workers and labor unions will have to adjust to lots of changes, including jobs that no one even imagines today. But King and other labor experts predict that organized labor won't go out of style in the next hundred years.

As long as there are workers, there is likely to be some kind of organized labor movement, says James Dworkin, dean of the Krannert Graduate School of Management at Purdue University.

"I think that most societies that have been successful have been marked by some sort of movement among workers -- whether a labor union or some other type of organization," he says. "I think that's probably always going to be on the horizon."

That's not to say there won't have to be some changes along the way.

"I think unions will continue to try to organize in new ways and organize new people," Dworkin says. "The old ways have worked somewhat. But we're in the electronic, high-tech age. There will be some new attempts at organizing -- through authorization cards on the Internet, perhaps. There are new techniques, I think, that will have to be tried."

For many years, the union movement has had strongholds in manufacturing, mining, construction and state and federal governments, he says.

"The problem with those areas is that they all represent shrinking portions of employment in the United States," Dworkin says. "Unions have a pretty good percentage of the work force organized in those areas. The problem is they haven't done as well in other areas, wholesale and retail, banking and insurance -- all these high-tech industries we think of today."

Looking for new ways to organize and new workers to unionize are already goals of the nation's labor unions.

The United Mine Workers of America is an example of a union that's trying to cope with all the changes, says Joe Angleton, president of UMWA District 11 in Springfield, Ill.

It may be harder for the UMWA than some others to diversify, because its history is so closely linked to one product: coal. But the UMWA is welcoming members in other sectors of the economy.

"We're over 110 years old, and we continue to try to diversify," Angleton says. "We think when it comes to service and providing for our membership, we do as good as anybody around."

Historic site: The Eugene V. Debs home (top, by Tribune-Star Photographer Jim Avelis) sits along North Eighth Street on the campus of Indiana State University. Debs is considered the father of the labor movement and ran five times as a Socialist candidate for president. In the photo above, courtesy of the Debs Foundation, pacifist Eugene V. Debs delivers a speech in Atlanta protesting World War I. In 1918, Debs was sentenced to 10 years in prison for publicly denouncing government prosecution of persons charged under the Espionage Act of 1917.