The American economy is in its worst shape in 70 years. Funding for key public programs is imperiled.

The disparity in income from the top of society to the bottom is expanding, creating harder-to-fill gaps in education and health care. America's industrial base has eroded, leaving communities with vacant factories and empty coffers.

The country's 16 million union members have a unique role in pushing for positive change that will help rebuild the economy and give Americans high-quality education and health care systems.

Where do NYSUT members and America's unions fit into shaping the road ahead?

How can their collective strength help reverse some of the setbacks that have occurred under both political parties over the past 30 years?

• Related article: Did you know? The state of the unions.

One-two punch

Labor opponents' most recent swipes at unions started in the 1980s.

One attack has been against the very concept of unions — trying to undercut the belief that people should have the right to organize themselves together.

The other is an assault on the things that matter most to members and their families — contracts, benefits and a strong voice on the job.

"The fight to protect our rights on the job and for a better society continues today," said NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi. "As educators, health care workers and those who serve the public, we have an obligation to work together to make New York and America stronger. Rebuilding the labor movement to take on society's challenges is key for our families and future."

Ronald Reagan's firing of striking air traffic controllers in 1981 was a pivotal moment for America's unions. The event set a new tone for relations between workers and employers, and made mass firings and the use of replacement workers a renewed option in the anti-union tool box.

The hostility and speed of Reagan's anti-union reaction caught many labor leaders off-guard after a period of relative stability that stretched from the end of the Korean War to the Carter administration.

In his inaugural address Reagan declared that "government is the problem," opening up criticism of federal- and state-funded programs and the public employees who administer them.

His fervor helped create the momentum for the anti-tax, anti-union groups whose agenda seeks to minimize public funding for many programs, including schools.

Democrat Bill Clinton's administration in the 1990s generally had a cordial relationship with unions, but his unwavering support of "free trade" created a crisis that hurt communities, states and many union members.

With the passage of the North American Free Trade Act, the country's industrial base eroded further as manufacturers put their corporate bottom lines ahead of their obligations to their workers and the areas that had nurtured and developed their industries.

As Mexico and other low-wage countries opened their arms to American corporations, many cities went from vibrant and middle class to de-industrialized shells, leaving union members and their families out in the cold.

The steel industry fled Pittsburgh and Buffalo. The auto industry deserted Detroit, Flint and Tarrytown. GE's moves overseas left Schenectady with about one-fifth of its former workforce. This pattern was repeated in cities and towns across New York.

Communities lost the tax base vital to local public services. Industrial unions, such as the United Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers, the backbone of the middle class, lost jobs and members by the tens of thousands.

In the 1970s more than 27 percent of American workers were covered by union contracts; today it's about 12 percent. The results are visible all around us. Higher-paying jobs were often replaced by minimum-wage jobs. Fewer jobs are permanent, and most offer no health care or retirement benefits.

America's largest private employer is now Wal-Mart, where 24 percent of employees in 2005 had no health coverage or were enrolled in a public health program because of their low wages.

"We need a rational solution to the health care crisis," Iannuzzi said. "Until our students and their families, until all Americans, have access to quality health care, those of us with coverage will be paying extra costs to cover the uninsured."

Members of the Professional Staff Congress at CUNY, including PSC President Barbara Bowen, joined an early February rally in the Bronx to support the striking workers at Stella D'Oro. Photo by Micah Landau.

The New York experience

People still working in the private sector faced consistent demands for concessions from the very employers who had weakened the U.S. economy by moving jobs overseas and buying only from low-wage manufacturers across the globe.

As the industrial workforce shrank, the public sector workforce became more highly unionized and a stronger voice in the labor movement, particularly in the Northeastern states.

The dearth of a bustling private sector and the resulting tax base loss across New York makes funding the socially necessary work of public education and health care a bigger challenge, putting more of a burden on state resources.

Fortunately, NYSUT, because of its high level of member involvement and political activity, has been able to fight and win on issues that matter to educators, health care workers, families and communities.

While winning full and fair funding for schools and services is an annual challenge, the union has been able to maintain the status quo in lean years and make gains in better times.

Member activism brought a significant Cost-of-Living Adjustment to tens of thousands of retirees in 2000, as members and leaders lobbied across the state. Because of a massive NYSUT initiative, every public school in the state now has a defibrillator and a staff person trained to use it. Each year these devices save lives.

"There is a lot to learn from NYSUT's grassroots network of active members," said NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin, who heads the union's legislative department. "The more our members are involved on the local level, the greater impact we have across the state. It's the best way to ensure labor's voice is heard."

Wage gap widens

The economic changes in America the past 30 years have hurt union members and other working families.

The changing pattern of wealth has led to great polarization in the differences between the "haves" and the "have-nots." Even Ben Bernanke, named chairman of the Federal Reserve under former President Bush in 2006, has said the drop in union membership explains 10 to 20 percent of the increase in America's income inequality.

Corporate profits have doubled since 2001, but real wages have stagnated. More than 20 percent of American workers are earning only poverty-level wages.

In a recent article in the AFT's American Educator, Fred Glass laid out the disparities. He reports that in 1980 the differential between the average chief executive of a Fortune 500 company and the average worker in his company was 42 to 1.

By 2004, the differential was 430 to 1.

The Service Employees International Union has reported that the difference between the Bank of America CEO and a branch teller is now 4,000 to 1.

These are the highest ratios of their kind in the world and the worst wealth inequity in the United States since the pre-Depression 1920s.

"In the three decades following World War II, the income of all groups rose at more or less the same rate," Glass wrote. "For the past quarter century, there have been growing numbers of poor people at the bottom, substantial numbers (but comparatively fewer) leading upper-middle class lives, and a diminishing number of working families in the middle. The very rich remain few, but their share of the wealth is increasing dramatically."

The widening gap, he said, weakens the country's ability to have a decent society, quality schools and world-class health care institutions.

Unions provide solutions

"The biggest contribution America's unions can make to a national economic recovery is to extend the rights, benefits and responsibilities of union membership to millions of workers," Iannuzzi said. "It will give our communities economic stability and a decent standard of living for the students in our classrooms."

Union membership is a growing trend in America, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, despite the many roadblocks and management obstacles and weak labor laws. In 2008, union membership grew by 428,000 to more than 16.1 million workers.

However, the number is still below the 17.7 million union membership total logged in 1983, the first year available for comparable data collected by the bureau.

Public opinion surveys show that millions of Americans would join a union if they had the opportunity. That is why unions are pushing hard to level the playing field between employers and their workers, by passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

It would give workers a process free of employer intimidation by allowing for a majority signup process, so that an employer would have to bargain in good faith with employees if a majority signed union cards.

"Public sector workers in our state have had a similar card-check right for decades under the Taylor Law," said Pauline Kinsella, NYSUT's executive director, who oversees the union's organizing efforts. "There is no evidence to back up the argument that unions try to intimidate workers into signing cards. On the other hand, there is a lot of evidence that shows private-sector employers use their considerable clout in the workplace against workers trying to organize themselves."

While public opinion polls show 78 percent support for the legislation, the anti-union corporate community is waging a multimillion-dollar disinformation campaign against the bill.

Unionization brings a counterbalance to the polarization of wealth that is so harmful to society.

In a recent op-ed, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote of the Employee Free Choice Act: "The sooner it's enacted, the better for U.S. workers and for the U.S. economy." Making it easier for all Americans to form unions, he wrote, "would give the middle class the bargaining power it needs for better wages and benefits. And a strong and prosperous middle class is necessary if our economy is to succeed."

In a study published earlier this decade by the Economic Policy Institute, authors Lawrence Mishel and Matthew Walters outlined "How unions help all workers." Among their findings:

•  Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow.

•  Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20 percent and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28 percent.

•  The most sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their non-union counterparts to receive paid leave, are 18 to 28 percent more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23 to 54 percent more likely to be in employer-provided pension plans.

•  Union members receive more generous health benefits than non-union workers. They also pay 18 percent lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. Retired union members are 24 percent more likely to be covered by employer-paid health insurance.

•  Union members receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to have a guaranteed retirement benefit, their employers contribute 28 percent more toward their pensions.

•  Union members receive 26 percent more vacation time and 14 percent more total paid leave — vacations and holidays.

"However, this review does not paint a full picture of the role of unions in workers' lives, as unions enable due process in the workplace and facilitate a strong worker voice in the broader community and politics," Mishel and Walters wrote. "Many observers have stated, correctly, that a strong labor movement is essential to a thriving democracy."

— Bernie Mulligan