WASHINGTON (AP) — With union membership on the decline, labor leaders are getting more creative — and some say more desperate — to boost sagging numbers and rebuild their waning clout.
Unions are helping non-union fast food workers around the country hold strikes to protest low wages and poor working conditions. They are trying to organize home day care workers, university graduate students and even newly legalized marijuana dealers. Members of a "shadow union" at Wal-Mart hold regular protests at the giant retailer, which long has been resistant to organizing.
Labor leaders say unions must create new models and new ways to represent workers to reverse a steady slide in the union ranks. Those efforts have taken on greater urgency since the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported earlier this year that union membership had declined to just 11.3 percent of the workforce — its lowest point in nearly a century.
"To be blunt, our basic system of workplace representation is failing to meet the needs of America's workers by every critical measure," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a recent speech.
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