Union Decline Is America's Problem, Says History Student

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)“Much of the media coverage around (the) drop in union membership asks what this means for labor's future,” writes former AFL-CIO staffer Lane Windham (right). “The larger question, however, is what it means for America's future.” Windham, now a PhD candidate in U.S. history at the University of Maryland, writes in The Baltimore Sun that “Unions have long served as economic equalizers.” But as employers have increased their attacks and union membership has declined, Windham notes, the income divide has grown. In 2000 Human Rights Watch declared that U.S. workers have effectively lost the freedom to form a union and Windham wonders “If not unions, then what's the new plan?” The near 100-year low in unionization rates “isn't just labor's problem,” Windham argues, “It's a problem for anyone who does not want to see U.S. economic inequality shred our nation's social fabric.” - photo courtesy National Labor College