Excerpt: "In union there is strength - that was the old saying and it was true. But the percentage of union members in the American workforce has declined in the last sixty years ... and labor has faced a pounding series of setbacks..."



Portrait, Bill Moyers. (photo: Robin Holland)

Unions in Peril

By Bill Moyers, BillMoyers.com

ost in the Supreme Court media chatter last week: a disturbing ruling in Knox vs. SEIU Local 1000 that restricts labor unions from directing collected dues toward political causes. There's no similar limit on corporations, naturally - yet another indication that the power and status of modern unions is waning, especially when compared to the unbridled influence of Corporate America. With a sharp decline in union membership, a legion of new enemies, and a series of legal and legislative setbacks, can unions rebound and once again act strongly in the interest of ordinary workers?

Bill talks to two people who can best answer the question: Stephen Lerner and Bill Fletcher, Jr. The architect of the SEIU's Justice for Janitors movement, Lerner directed SEIU's private equity project, which worked to expose a Wall Street feeding frenzy that left the working class in a state of catastrophe. Fletcher took his Harvard degree to the Massachusetts shipyards, and worked as a welder before becoming a labor activist. He served as Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, and is author of the upcoming book "They're Bankrupting Us!": And 20 Other Myths about Unions.