Jeremy Sherman Quoted in The Chicago Sun-Times

An article ("Unions look to increase their membership") in the September 6, 2005 Chicago Sun-Times states that "labor experts expect a revving up of union organizing activity in the months ahead following the recent defections from the AFL-CIO by three major unions and their formation of a dissident group." Earlier this year, the Service Employees International Union, which had been the biggest in the AFL-CIO, disaffiliated from the group, along with the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers unions. They are part of the new dissident Change to Win Coalition, which also includes the United Farm Workers, Laborers' International Union of North America and unions representing carpenters and hotel, restaurant and needle trades workers. Jeremy Sherman, national chairman of labor and employment practices at Seyfarth Shaw, which counsels employers, expects industries that can't be outsourced to be the major targets, including the service sector, hospitals and utilities. AFSCME Council 31, which last year organized about 3,000 people who have been certified and several thousand more awaiting certification, said health care and publicly funded agencies will remain targets. But unions, which have seen their representation in the work force plummet from roughly a third of the U.S. private sector work force in the 1950s to 8 percent today, will find it difficult to recruit new members, Sherman contends. "I think today many employers have put in programs and have policies which speak to the reasons why in the '30s and '40s employees turned to unions," he said. "I think the government has many programs in there that also speak to those issues, and frankly I think that it's a tough road for unions to be successful in persuading employees that they need to have a union to represent them."

Most American adults overall, most employed adults and, surprisingly, many union households rate labor unions negatively, a new Harris Poll reveals. Similar feelings, though somewhat less negative, are also felt toward corporate America. While the American public gives credit to labor unions for improving wages and working conditions for workers, they are widely perceived as being too involved in politics and too intent on fighting change that would benefit working people. These attitudes have not substantially changed since 1993 when a similar Harris Poll was conducted.