With corporate profits spiking and productivity up 15 percent, it would stand to reason wages would be up, too. Not so. A panel of three authors explained at a Friday forum that it's because the middle class has been squeezed. A significant reason is the decline of unions, which helped to build that class.

"As unions have gotten weaker, we've seen the social contract go down the drain," said Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times, who wrote The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker. Unions need to show that they are trying to raise wages, create safety nets for workers and demonstrate a larger social vision, Greenhouse said. Corruption has tarnished some of unions' shine, he said, and unions need to send out targeted messages to raise awareness about the good they do.

He suggested that unionists give talks in classrooms, and design traveling exhibits to tour libraries telling people about this country's history of sweatshops and the need for unions.

People say labor was needed "back then," not realizing how much it is needed now, said Phil Dine of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and author of State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence.

"There's nothing more important labor can do than figure out what it wants to say," Dine said. Unions need to talk about their values, and, rather than back specific candidates, they should focus on backing specific issues, he said. Labor must also appeal to the idealism of young people to help the movement grow.

"It's the first time in history people don't feel their children will do as well as them," Dine said. "They don't connect the dots between the decline in labor and the assault on the middle class. … People need to see the link between the two things."

As a labor reporter for a decade, Greenhouse said he was "shocked" at the extent to which American corporations break labor laws. Wal-Mart, he said, has made workers go off the clock and continue to work; other companies erase employees' logged time. Some lock employees in at night.

"More of that goes on than people realize," he said.

One software engineering company laid off its workers, then told them if they wanted severance pay they would have to train the workers from India replacing them, Greenhouse added.

Unions need to project concern about quality, not just special interests, said Richard Kahlenberg, author of the biography Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy.

Kahlenberg portrays Shanker as a towering figure in education reform and the international labor movement. "His major goal was to change teaching from a job to a true profession," he said.