The New Face of Solidarity

"It's not enough to live on," said Mr. Alvarez, an immigrant from Mexico who vacuums halls and flips mattresses. "I go to two churches each week to pick up donated food." On his days off, he collects bottles and cans for the deposit, adding $200 a month to his income. His hope is to join a union, and soon.

This week, judging by the somber mood at the United Automobile Workers convention, the state of organized labor would seem dire. Not so long ago, the U.A.W. was the nation's largest and most swaggering union, leading the way in building America's middle class by winning impressive wages, health coverage and pensions. But the U.A.W. is now in full retreat, ready to make concessions to help save the American auto industry.

Its plight points to a little-understood development: the nation's private sector is divided into two very different labor movements. The first comprises manufacturing unions, like the auto workers and machinists, which are on the defensive and on the decline. The second is made up of unions for the expanding service sector, which are upbeat and on the prowl for hundreds of thousands of nursing home aides, janitors, supermarket cashiers and workers like Mr. Alvarez.

Unite Here, the union that represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers, is seeking to organize thousands of nonunion Hilton workers in a battle that could culminate in a strike at many Hiltons this summer.

In a way, said Bruce Raynor, president of Unite Here, the service-sector unions hope to imitate the manufacturing unions of old. "Our goal is to move service-sector workers into the middle class," he said. "The manufacturing unions did that for factory workers. It took them 20 years to do that, and we hope to do the same thing."

The manufacturing unions have been devastated by globalization, with many companies insisting that America's unionized factory workers are overpaid and their benefit packages too rich compared with overseas workers. Delphi, the beleaguered auto parts company, has repeatedly trumpeted this assertion as it called for cutting its workers' $27-an-hour wages in half.

In contrast, the service-sector unions are largely immune to globalization - just try to outsource the job of a hamburger-flipper, hotel housekeeper or bedpan-emptier to China. Helping to make service-sector unions optimistic about attracting more members is the perception that workers like hotel housekeepers and janitors are underpaid and have skimpy benefits. Moreover, many of these workers are immigrants, who are often more enthusiastic about unions than native-born workers.

To help his union rebound, Ron Gettelfinger, the president of the auto workers, announced plans this week to spend $60 million more on recruiting nonunion workers. But this could prove an uphill battle.

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Source - The New York Times


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