VIEWPOINTS : MAKING A CASE FOR UNIONS : Is organized labor still a vital force in America’s economic and political life?

O n several fronts, organized labor in the United States is on the defensive. The percentage of the work force that is unionized has slipped over the years, and just last month the United Auto Workers union was soundly defeated in a widely watched effort to organize employees at the Nissan auto plant in Smyrna, Tenn. Meanwhile, big employers have demanded concessions from union workers: A week ago, communications workers went on strike in response to contract proposals by three regional telephone companies calling for employees to shoulder more of their health-care expenses. Do these developments reflect a decline in labor’s influence? Are unions still a vital force in America’s economic and political life? Times researcher Melanie Pickett asked various authorities for their opinions, and excerpts of the interviews follow:

Daniel J. B. Mitchell, director of the Institute of Industrial Relations at UCLA:

“What’s happened to unions, at least in the private sector, is that they have been marginalized into certain parts of the economy. They remain important in certain parts and in other parts are virtually non-existent. So, in the automobile industry--despite the Nissan vote--you wouldn’t want to talk about anything having to do with labor relations or industrial relations without talking about unions, and particularly the United Auto Workers. Even where particular employers are non-union, their behavior is conditioned on what’s going on in the union sector.

“The place where (unions) are most important, when we’re talking at the federal level, are in coalitions. It’s very difficult now for unions to get legislation that is specifically union-sector oriented. The last really big contest along those lines was the so-called labor reform bill in the late 1970s and that was in a much more hospitable environment with a Democrat President and Congress, and yet that couldn’t go through. But when you talk about things such as adjustments to the Social Security Act, then labor is very influential because they then build coalitions with other groups that have common interests. Even in absolute numbers, if you have an organization or a group of organizations that represents millions of people and can mobilize funds and mobilize people to knock on doors and ring doorbells and drive people to the polls, they matter in the political setting for that reason.”

Bruce Lee, Western regional director of the United Auto Workers:

“On social legislation, (organized labor) has always been in the forefront and will continue to be. The fight is on a different front today. Now labor has to be in front on how the shop floor is run, how the employees are treated when they go to the workplace. You have to do more than just negotiate wages and benefits. You have to really get into the decision-making process and how the employees work in that system. . . . Quite frankly, the team concept approach you hear so much about really won’t work well without a union. The union is what gives them integrity.

“The trade union movement is probably the only organized group that has recognized women’s role in the workplace. Corporate America sure as hell hasn’t done that.”

Jerome M. Rosow, president of the Work in America Institute:

“One thing to keep in mind about the future of American unions, when we look at Solidarity in Poland, or when we look at what happened in China . . . is the demand of workers for the right to unionize. Which is the sine qua non of whether a political system has any democratic features. And those who believe that the unions are passe or that unions can disappear and managers can manage their workers best without union representation are talking about an autocratic totalitarian state. This country will never survive as a democracy without free trade unions.”

Patricia Ireland, executive vice president of the National Organization for Women:

“Some of the unions that are growing and are on the move, for example the groups that are organizing clerical employees. . . have an impact on improving women’s wages. Women make less money on the average and they are less likely to be covered by union contracts. There is a correlation there.

“But the other way that they have been very important is in collective bargaining agreements dealing with, for example, pay equity. At the national level we’ve not even been able to get a bill through (Congress) to study pay equity. But at the state and local level--through negotiated contracts with unions representing public employees--there have been many, many locations that have already not only studied, but implemented, a pay equity system that increased the wages of jobs that are held predominantly by women or by blacks or other people of color.”

Andrew Kohut, president of the Gallup Organization:

“Looking at trends in public opinion polls over the years, we show consistently smaller numbers of Americans saying they are members of unions and consistently smaller numbers of Americans saying positive things about labor unions. The American public gives pretty low ratings to unions and the people who run them. We asked the public not too long ago to rate the honesty and ethical standards of various occupations, and the percentage who rated the honesty and ethical standards of labor union leaders as ‘high’ was only 14%. . . . It’s clear to me that the American public doesn’t see the typical American labor leader as altruistic.

“A lot of people blame labor unions for our competitiveness problem. Secondly, people see labor unions as acting in their own self-interest and not in the broader public interest. Those two elements are cutting against labor at this point in time.”

William Schneider, political analyst and a contributing editor to The Times’ Opinion section:

“Labor has far less influence on the national agenda for two reasons: One, there isn’t any money to do anything. Even if you argue for child care and help for the homeless and poor and transportation and pollution controls, you can argue until you’re blue in the face but there isn’t any money. And you don’t want to be caught raising taxes. So the result is that all progressive forces are on the defensive, labor among them.

“The second reason is the Democrat Party’s inability to win presidential elections. Labor is pretty closely tied to the Democrat Party and they’ve managed to hold their own on the state and local level but haven’t won a presidential election since 1976.

“But if you want to argue that labor is still on the cutting edge of the social agenda, there is some evidence that it is because it is expanding the agenda of collective bargaining beyond the traditional issues of wages and work conditions. . . . You saw it this year at AT&T;, which negotiated a rather interesting new contract that for the first time covered a wide range of fringe benefits. It covered a wide variety of fringe benefit areas that have never in the past been subject to collective bargaining. And it raised an interesting prospect and a contribution that labor could make to the social welfare agenda in an era when there isn’t any tax money. Namely, if the government can’t pay for health insurance benefits and child-care benefits and elder-care benefits and all these kinds of things that we normally expect the government to take care of, another option is to make them the subject of collective bargaining.”