Good read on need for union strength

Tracking back to Wednesday here ... the NY Times business page had a thoughtful column by David Leonhardt on unions. Why, in these days of outsourcing to Bangalore, should we Democrats continue urging that Congress back unions' organizing strength?

The wingnuts with their talking points will always say that unions hold down competition or innovation or whatever, and that the economy suffers as a result. Well down in this column was a nugget of research that says unions do little to affect the overall performance of the economy, continuing:

"But if they don’t change the size of the economic pie, they do influence how it’s divvied up. All else equal, a union worker makes about 15 percent more per hour than a nonunion worker and also gets better benefits. So while there are many reasons inequality has increased over the last three decades — like technology and global trade — the decline of unions is certainly one of them."

The columnist favors the secret ballot over the card-check that congressional Democrats are backing but he said the bill that failed in the Senate Tuesday at least had the "worthy goal" of trying to level the playing field. Read the column here.

So, back to the drawing board. The goal is to tip the balance back toward more equality.