:: rawblogXport ::

:: Monday, September 06, 2004 ::

Labor has seen better days By Jack Naudi, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO
Dan McKay remembers the glory days of the St. Louis union movement, when virtually every truck driven in and through the area had a brother behind the wheel. A union brother. A Teamster.

The St. Louis area had a reputation as a pro-union town. Companies moving here knew union construction trades would build their factory, union workers would staff it and union truckers would supply it.

'The culture has long been pro-union,' said Michael Harris, professor of management and organizational behavior at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. 'People in St. Louis are less suspicious of unions than they are in other areas of the country.'

Indeed, when compared to the 50 largest metro regions in the country, St. Louis has the third-highest private sector union membership rate. Only New York and Detroit are larger.

But for McKay, president of Teamsters Local 600 in St. Louis, the good old days are gone. Membership of his local has fallen by 35 percent over the last decade, to 3,600 from 5,600.

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