U.S. unions reach tipping point

At the State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., protesters rally Tuesday against the state's new right-to-work law. /Image via npr.org

The time has come to debate whether unions should continue to play a meaningful role in the U.S. economy.

Those who believe unions play a key role in checking corporate power and protecting worker rights should take notice of what is happening in Michigan, a U.S. union stronghold for nearly a century. If union clout can be whittled down in Michigan, it can happen anywhere in the country.

The percentage of U.S. workers who are union members has slumped to a 70-year low, falling under 12 percent last year. Union membership peaked at about 35 percent of the work force in the 1950s, when the modern industrialized U.S. economy was at its zenith in terms of growth and global competitiveness. As union ranks have thinned, the income and net wealth gap has widened between the rich and everyone else in American society, with the process accelerating over the past two decades.

I worked in a unionized workplace for six years. For the past seven years, I've had a handful of conversations with coworkers where a union-related subject has arisen. The line of discourse has varied (there was never even nascent talk about forming a union) but the reaction has been universal. To one degree or another, my coworkers have been uncomfortable to even discuss the topic of unions in general and union organizing in particular. You know the I-don't-want-to-get-in-trouble vibe. It's one of the first things we learn in elementary school.

Try it in your workplace. If a union-related topic comes up in conversation, watch how the level of discomfort and even fear increases the longer the conversation continues. If workers don't feel comfortable even talking about unions, then there will be no unions.

For those who feel unions have outlived their usefulness, it's time to make your case for union extinction. Make the case that unions were needed for creating the weekend, abolishing child labor and correcting other corporate and government excesses, but they now do more harm than good.

Hundreds of thousands of children work in the agricultural sector of the U.S. economy. It is considered the most hazardous work open to U.S. children, with 12 reported killed on farms in 2010, according to Human Rights Watch. /Image via Wesleying.org