Never mind the doomsayers. In spite of the Bush administration’s repeated efforts to undermine union membership, the labor movement remains strong.

According to documents filed with the U.S. Labor Department, between 2004 and 2006 AFL-CIO unions grew by a combined 1.42 percent, a net growth of 136,000 members. Leading the pack is AFSCME, which gained more than 120,000 members. Numerous workers joined AFSCME during the period, including child care providers in New York, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin, bus drivers in Indiana and thousands more across the country.

Imagine what would happen if workers were actually free to join unions and didn’t have to fight tooth and nail to assert their right to bargain for a better future. Just take a look at some examples of organizing amid employer intimidation from this recent issue of AFSCME WORKS magazine. Remember that over 60 percent of Americans approve of labor unions and some 60 million workers say they would be part of one if they could.

This is why we support the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), an initiative to allow people to join unions – either by ballot elections or majority sign-up – without employer interference. This is also why supporting a candidate that’s friendly to working families will be so important in ’08.

Next week, the U.S. House is expected to vote on the bipartisan Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a bill that would make it illegal to fire someone because of his or her sexual orientation. It is a national disgrace that in more than 30 states, competent and qualified workers can still be fired simply because of their sexual orientation.

In his statement on ENDA, AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee said, “Congress now has an opportunity to right this wrong. Immediate enactment of ENDA will send a clear message that the American Dream belongs to all of us… It is time to pass ENDA. It is the right thing to do.”

The House of Labor must be doing something right. According to the latest Gallup poll, sixty percent of Americans approve of labor unions.

That’s right. Sixty percent, even though unions are under constant attack by one of the most anti-worker administrations in recent history.

And here’s why: When it comes to fair wages, better health care and pensions, a union makes all the difference. Union members earn 30 percent more than nonunion workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. Likewise, 80 percent of union members are covered by pension plans versus just 47 percent of nonunion workers. Furthermore, nonunion employees are five times more likely to lack health insurance coverage.

It is not surprising that 60 million U.S. workers say they would join a union if they could. So, what’s the hold up? Employer intimidation. Our nation’s labor laws are enforced so feebly that employers routinely get away with breaking them.

Anti-worker lawmakers recently derailed Senate passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, an initiative that would allow workers to join unions – either by ballot elections or majority sign-up – without employer interference.

Despite clear approval from the American public, George W. Bush seems to think it’s fine that workers aren’t free to join unions or bargain for a better future for their families. He’s promised to veto the bill should it reach his desk.

Just one more reason for us to lead the battle to elect a pro-working family President in 2008!

Labor Day has barely ended and we are already witnessing new examples of employer abuse. This time it’s the University of Minnesota, which refuses to give its nearly 3,500 clerical, technical and health care workers a decent wage increase.

Represented by AFSCME locals 3937, 3800, 3801 and 3260 (Minnesota Council 5), these hardworking members are now on strike. Picket signs went up across the university early Wednesday morning after frontline staff workers overwhelmingly rejected the administration’s meager salary raise offer.

Over the past five years, workers at the U. of Minnesota have seen inflation steadily outpace their wage increases. Meanwhile, administrative salaries have grown an average of 27 percent. Faculty wages have likewise grown by 19 percent. Learn more by watching this video.

Take a stand and support the workers – call the strike hotline at 612-234-8772 or visit the Local 3937 site for more ways to help.

We’ve come to expect greedy execs at for profit corporations (Home Depot, Enron, etc.) but you’d expect better from a Catholic non-profit hospital.

Unfortunately, Resurrection Health Care, a Catholic hospital system in Chicago, seems to be taking on the worst traits of corporate America. Read all about it in the report “Coming Up Short: Resurrection Health Care’s Distorted Pay Priorities.”

Released by AFSCME Council 31 last week, the report documents the stark disparity between the compensation of top executives and the low wages paid to patient-support staff on the frontlines of hospital health and safety.

You can listen to a story about the report and Resurrection workers’ struggle on the Workers Independent News radio network.

Father Larry Dowling, a supporter of the workers trying to form a union at Resurrection and interviewed in the WIN story, said it well:

Catholic social teaching is very clear about the need for employers to pay a living wage and respect workers’ rights to organize a union. These low wages are an embarrassment - an embarrassment - for a Catholic institution.

The tide cannot be stopped. Slowly but surely, public employees across the country are gaining a voice at the bargaining table.

In Delaware, nearly 13,000 state workers won collective bargaining rights. Their fight to gain a voice at their job culminated when a bipartisan majority passed a bill in the state Senate and Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D) signed the initiative into law.

As AFSCME Council 81 Pres. Michael Begatto explains in this radio interview, this triumph marks the culmination of a 20-year struggle to win the right to bargain for a better future.

Delaware is but the latest among a streak of recent wins for state workers nationwide. In Oregon, the state legislature passed a bill allowing public employees to join a union via card-check. Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) signed it into law along with legislation codifying an executive order to grant bargaining rights to child care providers. New York, Kansas and Pennsylvania providers won collective bargaining shortly thereafter. In New Hampshire, majority sign-up for state workers became law while both the Massachusetts House and the Vermont House passed card-check bills earlier this year.

It was high time the brave men and women who keep America secure were given their due. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a bill extending full collective bargaining rights to police, firefighters and first responders across the nation.

As the AFL-CIO blog reports, nearly 20 states limit our public safety officers’ bargaining rights while two other states – Virginia and North Carolina – don’t even allow them to negotiate at all over hours, wages and terms of employment.

In order to effectively put an end to what a police officer described to the Washington Post today as “collective begging,” the initiative now has to go the Senate.

Let’s make sure that when the time comes, our elected officials do the right thing for our public safety officers, including the thousands of first responders, police and corrections officers represented by AFSCME. It’s the least we can do for those who risk their lives every day to keep us safe.

Yesterday, on a picture perfect July day in our nation’s capitol, thousands of union members and activists gathered to celebrate something that had not happened in more than a decade — a raise for millions of America’s lowest-paid workers. At a rally near the capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and dozens of congressional leaders declared raising the federal minimum wage merely a down payment on a promise that began with the sweeping elections of November 2006 – the first time Democrats have held power in both houses of Congress since 1994.

After months of roadblocks thrown up by Republican lawmakers, Democrats in Congress are finally able to deliver to working families a jump in pay from $5.15 an hour to $5.85. Today marks the first of three raises Congress approved that will bring the rate to $7.25 an hour in 2009.

A modest step for sure, but the moment was representative of a new day on Capitol Hill and in America for working families. Sen. Ted Kennedy perhaps said it best when referencing the important work AFSCME and organized labor did last election to make this happen. “This is your day, so enjoy it now and then let’s use this momentum to take back the White House in 2008!”

Anyone who’s ever wondered how it would feel to go without public services should have awakened Monday morning in Pennsylvania. That’s where Gov. Ed Rendell ordered a partial government shutdown, keeping 24,000 workers off the job. The 24-hour shutdown was the result of a budget stalemate between the authorities and the Legislature that was only resolved by the end of the day.

As AFSCME Council 13 Executive Director Dave Fillman said, the legislators “should be furloughed for not doing their job. The hard-working Commonwealth employees should stay on.”

Authorities said the unpaid furlough would only affect state workers performing “non-critical” jobs. Can they actually define “non-critical”? According to this report from the Associated Press, the effects of the shutdown were anything but non-critical: “Pennsylvanians discovered they couldn’t take driver’s license tests. Highway maintenance and a range of permitting and licensing functions were stopped or severely curtailed.” All this during the height of roadwork season.

From where we sit – and we think the Pennsylvania citizens who didn’t receive services would agree – these jobs are very important. And what about the paychecks that will go to the workers who couldn’t report? Bet those potentially missing dollars aren’t “non-critical” to them.

Although the stalemate is now over, AFSCME members will not take these abuses lying down. State workers shouldn’t be held hostage to political squabbles. Let’s make sure this never happens again.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Do you hear it? It’s the sound of time running out for the folks who want to trample on workers’ rights. Today, 51 Senators stood for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), an initiative that would allow workers to join unions – either by ballot elections or majority sign-up – without employer interference.

Although maneuvering from a minority of anti-union legislators prevented a vote on the bill, the message was clear: Workers’ rights will be restored sooner rather than later. If not now, then as soon as working families lead the battle to recapture the White House in ’08 and elect a President who will sign EFCA into law.

More and more people are joining the fight for workers’ rights. It was only a week ago that AFSCME members defied 95-degree temperatures to rally in favor of the measure. They endured the heat in order to protect workers who feel it from employers who don’t want their employees to form unions.

AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee said it best during the event, which was attended by a 6,000-strong crowd: “The most dangerous thing a worker can do today is form a union.” His thoughts were echoed in The Washington Post, where it was pointed out that “beginning in the 1970s, employers have preferred to violate the law – the penalties are negligible – rather than have their workers unionize.”

The only way the law will regain its teeth and back employees who want to gain a voice at work is through passage of this vital piece of legislation. Our fight has just begun!