Union leaders rap claims in U.S. Chamber reports

By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.comStaff Writer

Local union leaders dispute recent claims of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that unions hurt the economy and that today’s workers are happy without them.

In response to the possibility that a Democratic Senate majority will adopt union-friendly legislation next year, the chamber in late November released three reports titled “Responding to Union Rhetoric: The Reality of the American Workplace.”

The reports focus on American workers’ workplace attitudes, economic effects of labor unions and current labor law.

One report quotes Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern as saying that a greater percentage of the economy is going to profits than to wages, that a majority of parents believe their children will be worse off economically, and that tens of millions of Americans are “working harder than ever before, but they’re still falling behind.”

The chamber asks if the pessimistic outlook is due to a 55-year decline in union membership rather than actual economic conditions or worker attitudes.

“Organized labor’s membership demise would be especially frustrating to its leaders if most union and non-union workers were indeed satisfied with their employers and their jobs. Creating false impressions of tension between workers and employers may generate publicity for union leaders and provide a convenient rallying cry, but it misleads the public,” the report states.

The report cites five national polls of American workers conducted between 2001 and 2008 in which an increasing percentage of workers – 87 percent in 2001 to 90 percent in 2008 – said they were satisfied with their jobs.

The report notes that people who participated in an August Gallup poll said they were either completely or somewhat satisfied with the following aspects of their jobs: workplace satisfaction, stress, earnings and other concerns.

The report states that while union membership declined over the last 50 years, the median household income adjusted for inflation climbed from $38,771 in 1967 to $50,233 in 2007, and the poverty rate decreased by nearly half – from 22.4 percent in 1959 to 12.5 percent in 2007.

The report also notes that 59 percent of the population in 2007 had health insurance coverage provided by an employer – a figure that has not substantially changed since 1987, when the rate was 61 percent. And the number of employer-provided retirement plans increased from 207,748 in 1975 to 631,481 in 2005.

Patrick Connors, president of Teamsters Local 401 in Wilkes-Barre, said he doesn’t put much stock in the chamber’s use of the polls because “polls can say anything you want them to say” depending on how questions are phrased and who answers them.

“And the Chamber of Commerce is the employers’ union,” Connors said.