In 2005, the labor movement engaged in a wrenching, sometimes heated, debate about the future of unions. Working Life provided a forum for the debate, probably the only place one could find the full range of proposals and ideas coming from both major factions, as well as independent analysts and leaders.

Table of Contents:

The Future of Labor: Proposals
The Future of Labor: News
The Future of Labor: Electoral Politics

INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Future of Labor section. This is just the beginning of a section that I hope will become the portal for all things related to the debate over the future of labor–not just the debate that has been going on for the past few months but into the coming years. Please feel free to e-mail suggestions about content that should be included, either material you or your union has produced or other material you think would be of interest.

BACKGROUND
Dead. Finished. Irrelevant. Dinosaurs. Boring. Out-of Touch. And those are the PG-rated things people say about the labor movement. And some of them are also true. We are out of touch, we are boring and we’re pretty close to being irrelevant.

Check out the numbers. Only 7.9 percent of workers in the private sector belong to unions. If you add in the public sector, about 12 percent of the people working can call themselves union members. That’s pretty irrelevant as far as most sectors of the economy go. If that’s not a crisis, what is?

Forget the numbers. Take a street poll: how many people, particularly young people, think unions are pretty hip and where the action is? Or look at what people are wearing: which is more popular on a baseball cap, a union logo or the Nike swoosh? How many people can even explain what a union does?

We need debate. We need discussion. Let ‘er rip.