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By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press
      


RACINE, Wis. (AP) - There once was a time when Harry and Nancy
Harrington - their teenage children in tow - walked the picket line
outside the nursing home where she was a medical aide, protesting
the lack of a pension plan for the unionized work force.


      But those days of family solidarity are gone.


      Harry now blames years of union demands for an exodus of
manufacturing jobs from this blue-collar city on the shore of Lake
Michigan. He praises new Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for attempting
to strip public employee unions of nearly all of their collective
bargaining rights. And he wishes police would clear out the
pro-union protesters now in their third week of occupation of the
Wisconsin Capitol.


      "I'm sorry, but the unions want to yell, they want to
intimidate," says Harry Harrington, 69, as he sets a coffee cup
down next to another newspaper headline about the union
demonstrations.


      "They want to be heard," retorts Nancy Harrington, 66, who
fears a weakened union would jeopardize the teaching career of
their now 38-year-old daughter.


      The Harringtons typify the new national reality for labor
unions. Support is no longer a sure thing from the middle class -
not even in a city long considered a union stronghold in a state
that gave birth to the nation's largest public employee union.

National polls show that the portion of the public that views
unions favorably has dropped to near historic lows in recent years,
dipping below 50 percent by some accounts.


      But surveys also show a public uneasy with attempts to weaken
union bargaining rights by emboldened Republican governors who
swept into power in the 2010 elections amid concerns about state
finances. A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this week
found more adults nationwide sided with unions than the governor in
the Wisconsin dispute.

      For unions, the political standoffs occurring in states such as
Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio and are a make or break moment - a
chance to repair tarnished luster or risk sinking toward
irrelevancy among the American public.


      In Racine, a nearly two-hour drive southeast of the epicenter of
the union controversy in Madison, the question of the union's
appropriate role has divided husband and wife, mother and child,
co-workers and friends. 

It's the hot topic on editorial pages, at
coffee shops, even at the craft club that meets in the community
center at Roosevelt Park, where a dozen retired women recently were
talking over the top of each other about union powers while
knitting socks and hats.

      Among these women, at least, the pro-union protesters are right
and Wisconsin's governor is wrong. Their group includes a retired
Racine public school teacher who in 1977 joined in a teacher
walkout that lasted more than a month. Racine schools shut down
again for one day this February when a quarter of their teachers
were absent in a show of support for pro-union protesters.

      Yet the teachers' union is not the power it once was in the
Racine area. Despite a well-funded media campaign, the union's
candidate, Democratic state Sen. John Lehmen, of Racine - a former
high school teacher - was ousted by Republican challenger Van
Wanggaard in last fall's election. District voters also picked
Walker over Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett.

      When the teachers walked out last month in nearby Kenosha,
substitutes such as Kevin Kreckling quickly stepped forward. 

"I
felt a little torn. I wanted to have solidarity with the teachers,
but I have to make money, too," said Kreckling, 30, the son of a
union painter and who is studying to be a teacher at Concordia
University in Mequon.


      The decline in union power is perhaps best symbolized by the
area near Roosevelt Park, where a monument dedicated by the AFL-CIO
honors the Depression-era president who signed a 1935 federal law
guaranteeing collective bargaining rights. 


Not far away is a tall
chain link fence protecting the vacant plot of the old Case Corp.
farm equipment factory, which was razed a few years ago after the
company merged with another corporation and then downsized.


      CNH Global N.V., the successor company, still operates in the
area. And the city remains the home of S.C. Johnson & Son Inc.,
which makes cleaning products and bug sprays, and vehicle radiator
maker Modine Manufacturing Co. 


Yet numerous other companies have
scaled back or shut down, resulting in the loss of a third of
Racine's manufacturing jobs in the past 20 years, according to
federal Bureau of Labor Service statistics.


      "It's been a real blood-letting of companies," said Racine
Mayor John Dickert, adding optimistically: "But we're turning that
around."

      Racine's unemployment rate remains the second highest in the
state, at 12.8 percent in December. As the jobs have diminished, so
also have the union ranks. 


But the problem isn't solely about fewer
members. It's also that more people have come to perceive union
employees as the beneficiaries of cushy pension and health care
plans that others no longer enjoy, and even attribute union gains
to business losses.

      "Way back when, they protected the workers when there was no
protection - when they were overworked and not paid enough. But in
today's society, they're too strong," said Wendy Vesely, a Modine
employee who was celebrating her 44th birthday with her family at
Racine diner that attracts a cross-section of pro- and anti-union
patrons.

      Vesely thinks the Wisconsin governor is on the right track, but
may be "trying to get too much too quickly."


      Barbara Ford, one of the knitters at the community center, said
she thought little about unions when she worked in the finance
department at S.C. Johnson, a non-union company. 


Now, with Walker's
push to limit their bargaining rights, "Every time I think about
it, my blood boils," said Ford, 65, who retired five years ago.
"It's just horrible what he's doing to the state."

      Public anxiety about the economy has created an opportunity for
pro-business Republican officials to challenge unions in ways that
would have been unthinkable even a few years ago.

      In Missouri, where unions' share of the work force is half what
it was a generation ago, the leader of the state Senate is pushing
for "right to work" legislation that would prohibit union shops
in which all workers must pay union fees. In Ohio, Republican
leaders are pushing a bill that would restrict collective
bargaining rights for 350,000 public employees.

      The national framework for collective bargaining was laid in
1934 in Toledo, Ohio, after a violent labor dispute. But there's no
question that support for unions has waned there in recent years,
said Oscar Bunch, 81, who worked for 50 years at a General Motors
plant. He notices a mindset now that anyone with a well-paying job
is lucky. Auto workers have given "concession after concession,"
and that hasn't helped the cause of public-sector employees, he
said.

      Dining at the same restaurant as Bunch, union electrician Norman
Cook, 57, of Elmore, Ohio, said the Republican officials sense an
opportunity. 


"Their entire motive is to bust unions," he said.
"They're taking advantage of the financial times."

      Just south of Racine, in what would have been the shadow of the
former Case foundry, Jim Geshay runs a one-man chemical repackaging
business in an aging cinder block building across the street from
the bar that has been a union hang out. Yet Geshay says he soured
on unions during the 1977 teachers strike when teachers he trusted
tried to stop students from attending classes.

      "I personally think it's time for them to pay their fair
share," Geshay said.

      Associated Press writer John Seewer contributed to this report
from Toledo, Ohio.

Gallery

Politics and Government News

Residents of Racine, Wis., typify the new national reality for labor
unions. Support is no longer a sure thing from the middle class --
not even in a city long considered a union stronghold in a state
that gave birth to the nation's largest public employee union.

In union strongholds, residents wrestle with cuts

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