Excerpt
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): It's been an unusual year for organized labor. Sharp debates over the role of unions and workers' benefits have captured national attention and sparked major fights.
On the public sector side, Republican governors in several states, including Wisconsin and Ohio, have tried rolling back collective bargaining rights and long-established benefits. Unions rallied with huge marches and public protests. In the private sector, unions struck against Verizon for two weeks and remain in negotiations over demands from the company about pensions, health care and work rules.
The National Labor Relations Board has brought a case against Boeing, arguing it is retaliating against workers by opening another plant in South Carolina to avoid unions. The percentage of the private sector work force in unions is stuck in the single digits.
We get an assessment of what's happening to organized labor with James Sherk, senior policy analyst for labor economics at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research institution, Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff for the AFL-CIO, and Steven Greenhouse, longtime labor reporter for The New York Times.
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