Unions Tout Their Work

Calls for "Buy Union-Made" and "Buy American" might appear nostalgic in a day when X-rays of American patients are analyzed by physicians abroad and U.S.-produced shoes are nearly impossible to find.

But the union movement hopes its 130-year-old message to buy products with the union label and more recent calls to buy American are reinvigorated amid the growing debate about overseas outsourcing of service jobs and the steady loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

The AFL-CIO admits that consumers face a tough task when they search for union-made goods and services, so it uses the annual Union-Industries Show to highlight such products. The event, which started in 1938, was held in St. Louis this April.

Last year, 12.9 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, down from 13.3 percent in 2002. The percentage stood at 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics kept track of this particular statistic.

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