"For most people, 'national security' means having a job, having a place to live and having health care." 
By Dick Gale, SDEA Executive Director

Now, there's a perspective you don't hear very often. It summarizes the essence of the American Dream: If you work hard you should be able to provide the basics of a decent life for yourself and your family. Members of each generation should be able to improve upon the standard of living of the previous generation.
Unfortunately, for many middle class Americans in 2008, it is in danger of becoming the impossible dream.

The speaker was the noted American historian and activist Howard Zinn, author of  A People's History of the United States. The eighty-five year old social critic was one of dozens of provocative professors and union leaders who spoke to a group of forty-two trade unionists during January and February at the Harvard Trade Union Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I was lucky enough to be one of those forty-two individuals. My six-week absence from the wonderful, wacky world of the San Diego Education Association was not particularly convenient, but I cannot imagine missing the opportunity to learn about the strengths and challenges of the union movement in the United States and abroad.

When I returned to San Diego on February 16th, I was a different person. Not in the physical sense, of course, but intellectually and emotionally. I understand, perhaps for the first time, the absolutely critical juncture at which the union movement finds itself in 2008. I appreciate in a much more powerful way how vital teachers, and other unionized public employees, are to the overall health of the union movement.

Most importantly, I recognize that for unions to be successful, they must be transformed from service providers to member-centered organizations. This point was driven home repeatedly by our program's director, Dr. Elaine Bernard, as well as by numerous union leaders who were invited to speak or by my fellow attendees.

What gave me great satisfaction was the knowledge that SDEA is already embarking on this transformation. The direction being set by your leaders and staff was repeatedly confirmed to be where unions ought to be heading in the 21st century.

What is remarkable about this is that it doesn't matter whether we're dealing with fire fighters or bricklayers, carpenters or local government employees, steelworkers or operating engineers. The strength of unions lies in their members. The solutions to the problems encountered in the workplace lies in organizing these members around the issues that are fundamental to their day-to-day working conditions.

This is not to suggest that such a process comes easily. It demands hard work over time and, quite often, difficult strategic choices. It necessitates member education and training, legal assistance and political involvement. Most crucially, it requires that union members, both public and private, work together and understand that there is more that unites us than divides us.

Surveys have shown that over half of non-union workers in the labor force would join a union today if they had a chance. And why not? Union workers in the United States earn 27% more than non-union workers and are much more likely to have a retirement plan and health care benefits. Imagine the political and economic differences if there were 75 million union workers in this country instead if 15 million.

But, the challenges are daunting. After World War II, nearly 40% of America's workers were unionized. By 1983, union membership in the U.S. had declined to about 20%. Today, as you can see from the map on the page 5, overall union membership in the United States has dropped to only 12.1%. This means that, only 1 in 8 American workers belong to a union. Although it varies dramatically by state and region, even in the most heavily unionized states, only 1 in 4 workers are unionized. In fact, half of America's union workforce is concentrated in only seven states.

These numbers mask an even more dire picture of union density because workers in the public sector (35.9%) have a union membership rate five times that of private sector employees (7.5%). Education-related occupations have the highest rate of unionization at 37.2%, followed by public safety occupations at 35.2%.

This loss of union density is international in scope and comes about for a variety of reasons, including: globalization; technology; the decline in large workplace-based employment, as well as employer opposition and hostility. This decline preceded but eventually helped to contribute to the wage stagnation of the past three decades. In many ways, this loss of union density represents a loss of power for working women and men in this county and abroad.

The challenge for teachers and other public sector workers is to not squander the public support we enjoy, especially as economic pain spreads throughout the economy. We risk a backlash from the 85% of society that does not belong to unions if we are perceived as only being interested in padding the nest of our own members. SDEA must continue to stand for the teachers and certificated support staff of SDUSD, but we must also stand for economic equality and the 'national security' of society as a whole.