Keeping employers from using their leverage over the lives of employees to lock unions out of most work places is a key benefit of "neutrality agreements." Whether unions win and workers join union is a vital question in a number of ways.

I’ve written here and here about the attempts of union to organize unorganized workers using “neutrality agreements” in which employers agree to not campaign against unionization.

As Ed Ott, NYC Central Labor Council Director, said at Demos while ago, unions are the engine for helping lower income people to financial security. This was shown to be true recently in an interesting study by the Center for Economic & Policy Research . The study by John Schmitt compared the wages of unionized with non-unionized workers. Union workers make more (yawn?) But a surprising finding – low-wage union workers make much more – 20% more than non-union workers. (Hat tip to Jonathan Tasini for finding this first, by the way).

In addition strong unions help further the progressive agenda in other ways: unions campaign for affordable housing, for education funding and fair tax. The last 7 & ½ years of Mr. Bush’s class war on low and moderate income people harmed all of us: less money for affordable housing, education, higher gas & food prices and stagnating wages and of course, no start on sustainable energy policy. No matter who’s elected president, the struggle to reverse the impacts of the years of Bush looting will require serious struggle. Strong unions would be helpful in that effort and yet –as Andy McDonald of the Service Workers International Union (SEIU) pointed out -- 7 ½ % of private-sector workers are represented by unions; 92 ½ % are not. .

A great terror faced by employees every day is getting fired. In these tough times, employees are being cleared away like fallen leaves. Those of us who work without the protection of a union (almost all of us) are subject to a (in my opinion, pernicious) legal doctrine: employment-at-will which says —more or less – that the boss can fire any of us for a good reason, a bad reason or no reason at all. (In theory, there are limits: age for discrimination, for example, is forbidden; but boy is it hard to prove!)

In my experience, the boss’s freedom to fire workers at whim is the most cherished of prerogatives (But see Ellen Dannin’s post arguing that bosses would be better off without it ). Although the ACLU is against it, the employment at will doctrine is alive and well especially here in New York.

Tuesday’s paean in praise of Jacob Riis’ photography (google images of his work here , wiki article here)and 1880’s discovery of How The Other Half Lives, was given contemporary life by the report of NYS’s Labor Department which has discovered that employers are unlawfully exploiting their workers by not paying them, by paying less than minimum wage, by not paying disability and unemployment compensation etc. Ms.M. Patricia Smith, the Labor Commissioner, who set a bold course as chief of the AG’s Labor Bureau, continues to light fires. “I wouldn’t doubt that 10 percent of the state’s workers are either misclassified as independent contractors or work off the books,” Ms. Smith said. (Jonathon Tasini’s take here )

I see illegal employment everywhere: construction workers, off-the-books domestic workers, delivery people and supermarket baggers. They are working without fair pay in every neighborhood. Have you ever seen any? Will it come as a shock to you that many of those victimized are men and women of color?