The battle for and against labor unions continues.



AFL-CIO describes a union as a democratic organization of employees in a workplace who choose to join together to achieve common goals.

By forming unions, AFL-CIO says employees can work collectively to improve working conditions, including wages and benefits, hours and job safety.

Still, even though Gallup and Pew Research Center finds many Americans approve of labor unions, membership is down substantially from where it was in recent decades.

While manufacturing and other industries that were once union strongholds have declined and contributed to the downturn in membership, so-called anti-union laws have also been blamed.

However, Trey Kovacs, policy analyst for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says many non-union workers now have the same benefits as unionized workers.

"I think that problem is that workers today want flexibility," he says. "Survey after survey shows right below compensation, which obviously is number one, people want to work the hours they want, come and go as they please, work remotely."

But a union, he says, is a "one-size-fits-all contract," hence unions don't "mesh" with what employees want.

Approximately only six percent of private-sector workers belong to unions, says the analyst.

Even so, AFL-CIO maintains that unions are still relevant, adding that "unions also represent members and all people who work by advocating working family-friendly laws and policies through legislative and political action."

Kovacs has this to say in response: "Unions are still relevant today in the sense that they're able to extract millions of dollars in forced union dues, and are able to influence politics by giving well over 90 percent of those dollars to Democrat politicians."