Small Businesses Affected by Changes Confronting America's Workforce (11/5)

Small Businesses Affected by Changes Confronting America's Workforce

The workplace has evolved dramatically during the last 25 years, and experts say the downsizing of large manufacturing and assembly facilities has led union organizers to focus their sights on smaller businesses to increase membership. David Larson, professor of labor and employment law at Creighton University, says that although union leadership in the private sector has been slow to make adjustments to both shrinking workplaces and changing demographics, new organizing efforts are aggressively changing direction, and even small business owners may find themselves the target of union drives.

The major issue facing both labor and management has shifted dramatically from current jobs to future jobs, a reflection of the shift from an industrial to a technology-based economy, says Patrick Vaccaro, a partner with Jackson Lewis, one of the largest employment law firms in the country. "Unions will use any advantage they can get, and it is incumbent upon management to work harder to know the issues that are important to their employees," says Vaccaro.

The U.S. labor movement is in a transitional period, says Peter Seybold, director of the division of labor studies at Indiana University. "The renewed emphasis on organizing has yielded some results as unions devote more resources to organizing the unorganized, but barriers remain due to inequities in existing labor law. The labor movement also was successful in 2000 in defeating so-called 'Paycheck Protection' legislation in California, which would have crippled the capacity of unions to act in the political arena."

The struggle to remake the U.S. labor movement is on, says Rick Fantasia, Smith College professor of sociology and author of "Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, and Contemporary American Workers." "At the tactical level, we're seeing an effort to mobilize new categories of workers, particularly in the service sector and among minorities. Still, whether labor becomes a genuine social movement capable of advancing the interests of all of America's working people remains an open question."

"Labor unions have an uphill struggle against worldwide social and economic forces over which they have little or no control," says Steve Dandaneau, University of Dayton assistant professor of sociology and labor union expert. "The future of American organized labor is bleak. We need a new kind of labor movement, which would require not only very creative leadership but some kind of widely shared appreciation for the movement."

Union leadership is responsible for declining membership, says Larson. "Union leaders have failed to educate the public. They have not explained that union contracts are one of the only ways to protect workers from arbitrary dismissals. Additionally, union leaders need to emphasize that one of the few ways to slow the growing income gap is through union membership and collective bargaining," says Larson.

"The Industrial Age created the human robot. The Internet Age will create the virtual employee," says Carol Lashman, founder and president of ConsultLink Inc., a Web directory of computer consultants and contractors. "People will be able to work anywhere, any time and for multiple companies at once. Hail the age of true employee empowerment."