Working for the union label

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/14/working_for_the_union_label/

By Ralph Whitehead Jr.
January 14, 2008

THE MICHIGAN PRIMARY is tomorrow and the Nevada caucuses are Saturday. This schedule calls to the mind the striking contrast between the way Detroit greets air travelers and the way Las Vegas does it. If you fly into Detroit Metro Airport and catch a ride east toward the city itself, you have to go a stretch before a gigantic tire welcomes you to the Motor City. But far be it from Las Vegas to show such reserve. At its airport, just after you exit the jet way, slot machines greet you in the terminal.

As different as it is from Detroit, however, Vegas has imitated it in one respect: Detroit used to be a place where a person with little education could still get a good-paying job. With the contraction of the auto industry in Michigan, and the expansion of the gambling business in Nevada, Vegas has become the town that beckons with this opportunity.

In Nevada, the average hourly wage of a worker with no more than a high school diploma is $23.30, the highest of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. On this count, Michigan is now 10th.

Nevada isn't on top by accident. It's there because the vast majority of the state's workers hold jobs in the Las Vegas area and, though Nevada is a right-to-work state, Las Vegas is nonetheless a union town. In fact, as Hal Rothman reports in "Neon Metropolis," his insightful book on Vegas, it is now "the most unionized city in the United States."

Its largest local union is Culinary Workers Union Local 226. This is the 60,000-member local that endorsed Barack Obama last week, even though a large majority of it members are women and he had just lost New Hampshire to a female opponent, Hillary Clinton. Caucuses aside, though, this union is also a possible model for the future.

The typical hourly wage of a 2008 worker with at least a four-year degree is higher than the typical hourly wage of a 1973 worker with a four-year degree - but the typical wage of a 2008 worker without a degree is lower than the typical wage of a 1973 worker without a degree. Moreover, two of three of today's workers do not have a degree.

FULL story at link.