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Whatever Happened to Organized Labor?
A Michigan at Risk Special |
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A look at the historical roots of the modern American and Michigan labor movement.
#1802. originally aired Tuesday, September 4, 2007
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Labor unions are in trouble.
For two decades, support for unions has eroded along with membership. Consider Michigan's biggest and most powerful union, the United Auto Workers. Its national membership has gone from a high of 1.5 million members in the 1960s, to 625,000 in 2004.
Conservatives and businesses say the age of unions has passed; that they are no longer needed. In a state where jobs have long been drifting to Mexico, China and Indonesia, will unions survive?
"Whatever Happened To Organized Labor? A Michigan at Risk Special," takes a step back in time to see how unions came about in Michigan, how they prospered, where they got into trouble, and when they began to decline.
The story comes up with some surprising answers. While the industrial labor unions are indeed in trouble, viewers may be surprised to learn that other unions -- those serving teachers, government employees and service and food industry workers -- are actually holding their own, surviving, and in fact are increasing their membership.
These successful unions wiped the slate clean of many traditional union ways of doing business, offered bold ideas and adopted a whole new business attitude.
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