In 2009, according to the U.S. Labor Department, there were only five major strikes or work stoppages involving 1,000 or more employees. That’s the fewest since 1947, when the department began compiling such data.

While no one likes the turmoil of a strike, the numbers reflect the continuing erosion in the influence of unions. The Labor Department reported that there were, on average, 20 major work stoppages a year from 2000 through 2009, down from an average of 35 a year during the 1990s and 83 in the 1980s.

Currently, only 12.3 percent of wage and salary workers in the U.S. are union members, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. Moreover, only 15.3 million working Americans are unionized.

These numbers are a far cry from labor’s heyday, which reached its zenith decades ago, especially in Michigan when the automobile industry was king.

The decline in strikes has mirrored the decrease in organized labor’s numbers, according to Michael LeRoy, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign School of Labor and Employment Relations.

Union membership peaked shortly after World War II, when about 34 percent of the nation’s work force was represented by unions, LeRoy said.

Data for 2009 showed that more public sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a union than did private sector workers (7.4 million). Those are surprising numbers, considering that there are five times more wage and salary workers in the private sector.

Although the foregoing statistics are striking, the reason for them is not complicated. Last year the nation was mired in its deepest economic slump since the Great Depression. Union and non-union workers who had jobs wanted to keep them. Most of those unemployed gladly would have traded places with those with jobs.

On this Labor Day of 2010, the year has been one of creeping improvement, although some economists point out that recovery has been unimpressive, and that the nation could slip back into recession.

Only a couple of months from now, the nation will hold its mid-term elections. Already, some pundits are predicting a sea change in Congress, with the Democrats — who hold strong majorities in both the House and Senate — taking a political bath and losing control of Congress.

Political analysts in parts of the country where labor backing is traditionally a big factor will be watching to see if union members desert the Democratic party in droves. That last happened in 1994, when President Bill Clinton lost Congress to the Republicans. In 1980, Ronald Reagan drew enough support from the working class to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term.

Nevertheless, the labor movement is far from dead. In fact, organized labor can be a decisive force in a country fighting its way back into prosperity. The role of the labor movement in the development of our country has been powerful, and much good has come from it. The 60-hour-week sweatshops and child labor abuses of past centuries have been banished.

Moreover, a strong case can be made that organized labor was a major force — especially in the 1930s and during the decades following World War II — in creating what has become known as the middle class. Moreover, on this Labor Day, millions are enjoying themselves on a popular holiday that has its roots in the labor movement.

However, this recession has been a key factor in the shrinking of the middle class, whose members have lost jobs, homes, cars, the ability to send their kids to college, and are forgoing the many amenities that had been taken for granted.

“The strike has lost its utility as a way of improving wages and working conditions and become at best a defensive strategy,” said Thomas Kochan, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Strikers are fighting to avoid deeper cuts. Workers are afraid of losing their jobs.”

Fortunately, labor and management continue to recognize that America is competing in a global economy. In many situations, both sides are trying harder to avoid conflicts. Labor unions have made significant concessions in a continuing effort to help their employers stay in business and their families to have the necessities of life. We have seen examples of significant union-management cooperation in the Kalamazoo area. Let’s hope that this healthy attitude endures.

Obviously, the history of labor unions in America has been anything but flawless. Crime and corruption have been well documented. However, the same can be said about corporate America, i.e., the devastating Wall Street scandals that came to light when the country entered the current recession.

Let us hope that organized labor and management can continue to work together, and underscore the principles and dreams of famous early labor leaders such as Samuel Gompers and Michigan’s Walter Reuther.

Today marks the unofficial end of summer. The reason for the holiday should remain as strong as ever.

Americans not only should enjoy this day of leisure. They also should continue to believe in the free enterprise system, and further demonstrate their determination to preserve it.

By Andrea Hopkins - (Reuters)

Even when they found new jobs, workers displaced by job loss to China saw their earnings decrease by an average of $8,146 each year because the new jobs paid less, according to the report, funded in part by labor unions.

“This report is groundbreaking because it shows the extent of damage caused by Chinese cheating,” said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which helped fund research for the report by EPI, a left-leaning Washington think tank.

“(We hope) it will help to focus the debate on trade to where it needs to be right now with respect to China,” Paul said, noting that free trade is shaping up as a major issue in the November presidential election, especially in closely fought battleground states like Ohio.

U.S. manufacturers, labor unions and many lawmakers have long accused China of manipulating its currency to give Chinese companies an unfair advantage in international trade, and are pressing China to continue to allow the yuan to rise against the U.S. dollar to help level the playing field.

China has said the United States should recognize how much its yuan currency has already risen against the U.S. dollar — it is about 20 percent higher since China revalued its currency in July 2005.

China has also said the fact that Americans save much less of their incomes than do the Chinese has fueled the trade deficit. Chinese-made goods have been snapped up in recent years by U.S. consumers looking for low prices.

MANUFACTURING BEARS BRUNT

The EPI report showed more than two-thirds of the jobs displaced by China trade deficits were in manufacturing and more than half came from the top half of the U.S. wage distribution. U.S. factory jobs typically pay well and include health insurance coverage and retirement benefits.

The manufacturing sectors hit hardest by the trade deficit with China included computers and electronics, apparel and fabricated metal products. Service sectors like administrative support services and professional, scientific and technical services also saw large job displacement because of the China trade deficit, EPI said.

Contrary to popular belief, jobs lost to China were not necessarily low-skilled, the report showed. Thirty-one percent of the jobs lost were among workers with college degrees.

“A dramatic example is the loss of 200,000 scientists and engineers within the manufacturing sector, a 10.7 percent drop,” the nonpartisan AAM said in a statement. AAM represents some U.S. manufacturers and the United Steelworkers of America.

The issue of free trade has dominated campaign debate in parts of the United States, including industrial Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania — all of which are politically divided and will be closely contested by the presidential contenders.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama has promoted a message of more trade restrictions — of “fair trade not free trade” — while Republican John McCain has embraced free trade as a way for America to win new markets and stay competitive.

Terry Straub, Vice President of Public Affairs and Government for U.S. Steel Corp., said American manufacturing could only compete if Chinese “cheating” were stopped. He said pressure will be on politicians during the campaign to protect U.S. workers.

“Until we address distortions of the free market, such as dumping, subsidies and illegal currency manipulation, we’ll continue to see a hollowing out of our high-tech productive capacity, as well as the very good jobs that go with it,” Straub said. “As the candidates campaign this fall, we expect to see these very real issues discussed.”

March 3 (Bloomberg) — Conservatives are attacking labor unions and President Barack Obama’s relationship with them. The charges? Unions are corrupt and engage in “thuggery”; they destroy jobs and the economy; and Obama is increasingly “in the tank for the labor movement” and has ruined his signature initiatives by kowtowing to them.

A lightning rod for many of these attacks has been Obama’s nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker is a highly respected labor lawyer with a distinguished career. Can’t conservatives disagree with him without calling him “radical” or his appointment “obscene”?

For decades, Republican appointees to the board have weakened the laws protecting workers who want to organize. The balance in current law to which conservatives are so committed has tilted the playing field in favor of management — the precise reason why they are so enamored of the legal status quo.

Some argue that a few pro-union provisions (such as “Buy American” requirements) ruined the stimulus package, which Obama should have vetoed in response. But, whatever the merits of those provisions, most economists — including Mark Zandi, an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain — say the stimulus package helped jumpstart an economic recovery and created or saved millions of jobs. Conservatives shouldn’t sacrifice those gains because of a few small provisions favorable to unions.

‘Death Panels’

And the notion that a single pro-union provision in the Senate health-care bill destroyed its public support is silly. Clearly, Republican demagoguery about the bill — including charges of “death panels” and “socialized medicine” — were vastly more destructive to public support than the exemption from the “Cadillac tax” for union members.

Conservatives are very upset about union financial contributions to the Democrats and Obama. But they aren’t so outraged at the enormous reliance of Republicans on contributions from the business sector and the wealthy. And when George W. Bush’s administration rewarded these contributors with huge tax cuts that were never paid for and that wiped out our nation’s fiscal balance, they didn’t seem to be so troubled.

A lot is written about union corruption, especially among the Teamster. But whatever sins some Teamsters have committed, tarring the entire movement with such charges because of one union is akin to claiming all business leaders are corrupt due to Bernard Madoff. “Thuggery” and violence are prominent parts of American labor history, but most of it has been perpetrated by employers and their cronies against pro-union workers.

Complex Relationship

Perhaps the weakest of these arguments are those on unions and the economy: Unions invariably lead to lower employment, higher rates of business failure, and lower economic growth. Economic analysis implies a complex relationship between union wages and employment. It depends on a range of things, including how competitive the markets are in which the company operates; how flexible its production techniques and locations are; how collective bargaining affects workers’ skills and productivity as well as management’s human-resource policies; and the strength of demand for workers in the nonunion sector.

If markets are less than fully competitive, if alternative modes of production are limited, if unions generate more skilled and productive workers, or if nonunion demand is strong enough to absorb any workers displaced by unions, economic analysis predicts unions won’t reduce employment by very much or at all.

Unions Reduce Inequality

For decades, economists have researched these issues, and a substantial body of evidence has emerged. Without a doubt, unions raise the wages and benefits of their workers and tend to reduce economic inequality. The increase in economic inequality in America over the past three decades was at least partially caused by the decline in private-sector union coverage.

Beyond that, evidence shows unions reduce costly worker turnover, raise the skill levels of employees, and often lead to more productivity. And any negative union effects on employment or economic growth in the U.S. and abroad are mostly modest.

Unions aren’t to blame for recent firm closures and bankruptcies. Richard Freeman, of Harvard University, and Morris Kleiner, of the University of Minnesota, found no statistical effect of unionization on corporate-bankruptcy rates in a 1994 study. The U.S. economy destroys and creates millions of jobs each year, with tens of thousands of establishments closing and opening, often in the same industries. Little of this is driven by unions.

As an economist, I don’t always agree with America’s union movement, the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and I wouldn’t argue that union actions are always beneficial or costless. But a sensible discussion requires a careful, dispassionate look at the theory and evidence on unions — rather than right-wing ideology and stereotypes dressed up as analysis.

(Harry J. Holzer is a professor of public policy at Georgetown University and a former chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department. The opinions expressed are his own.)