Public Employee Press

The World of Work
By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Getting good media coverage is
a crucial part of labor’s revival

With American working people squeezed by the worst economic inequality since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the nation voting overwhelmingly for a pro-union White House and Congress, the union movement now has its greatest opportunity to rebuild, veteran labor reporter Philip M. Dine said Dec. 17 at a Cornell University forum.

A key challenge will be winning over public opinion, said Dine, author of the recently published book, “State of the Unions.”

He pointed out that 3 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the last decade and over 30,000 workers were fired last year for trying to organize unions — with no public outrage.

“Labor’s problem is that ordinary Americans don’t see the link between the decline of unions and the loss of good jobs,” said Dine, in part because unions have a “dysfunctional relationship” with the media.

Dine offered suggestions on how unions can get their message out more effectively. Too often, he said, labor leaders do not understand the importance of cultivating personal relations with reporters or are outright hostile. He explained that when reporters press to do labor stories, their editors typically ask if any “RPs” or real people are involved. Many unions present only officials and issue uninteresting press releases, instead of helping the media dramatize stories by showing how labor issues affect ordinary people.

Rather than focusing narrowly on wages, unions need to demonstrate how their battles are part of larger struggles to improve the plight of the poor and middle class, promote civil rights and advance human rights, including the right to organize and bargain collectively.

To illustrate, Dine described his coverage of a campaign by 900 Mississippi catfish workers — mainly African American women — to form a union. In an area where a White Citizens Council fought civil rights decades ago, the strikers still faced a hostile white mayor and sheriff.

The women garnered public support by showing that their campaign was part of the whole community’s struggle for social and economic justice. They voted 473-1 for the union, negotiated a contract and doubled their pay. “Today, there is a black mayor and a black sheriff,” Dine said. The labor battle “changed the fabric of life in that Mississippi Delta town.”

An important challenge will be to apply these lessons to help pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which would ease organizing by allowing workers to unionize by signing a card rather than going through a cumbersome election process that subjects them to firing and harassment by management.