"People condition themselves to believe that they deserve to make $6 an hour, that they don't deserve to have health care, that they are invisible, that they don't have value. We want to show people that there is a way to get more, that they deserve more, that there is no shame in being a cleaner."

"I never expected the industry to be in the condition that it has been in the last five years. I definitely believe that" unions "have protected many of our jobs."

"That's the dangerous thing about it: People are more concerned about themselves than others. If there were to be a strike, I would be concerned about how many people would stand out on the picket line."

Service workers, such as janitors and food preparers, often work odd hours with low pay and few benefits. They have good reasons to organize and the public may be sympathetic to their plight.

A once-quiet part of the U.S. economy, immigrants, both legal and illegal, are becoming more vocal in demanding fair treatment. A series of marches earlier this year was reminiscent of the labor struggles of the 1930s.

While workers have more rights and benefits than 30 years ago, many still don't feel respected by their companies. Unions offer employees a voice.

Companies are whittling away at health care benefits offered employees or are asking them to pay more for their coverage. This could become a sore spot with workers.

Green, a 26-year-old Detroit janitor, normally would have discarded the flyer, but he had just learned he was about to become a father again. He was drawn to the union message of a better living, job security, benefits and health insurance.

Green attended the rally, joined the union and set out to evangelize, signing up new members for the budding Service Employees International Union Local 3.

Unions must convince a new generation of workers that unions can deliver tangible benefits, experts say. They have to reach out to new groups -- young workers, students, immigrants, day laborers and service-sector employees.

"That is absolutely the future and the vitality of the labor movement," said Harley Shaiken, a labor relations professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

At the end of 2005, union members made up 12.5% of the U.S. workforce and 20.5% of the Michigan workforce, about half the level of 30 years ago, according to Census Bureau data released last week and historical data compiled by UnionStats.com.

Companies increasingly are cutting benefits. The percentage of workers covered by employee-based health insurance has fallen for five straight years, from 63.6% in 2000 to 59.5% in 2005, according to census data.

Employees also are becoming more nervous about their future. In the past five years, the percentage of workers "very concerned" about job security has risen from 26% in 2000 to 45% in 2005, according to a Rutgers University workforce survey.

"Workers with union representation have much more of a voice in what's going on than without union representation," said Gary Chaison, professor of management at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. "Employment is very insecure in the United States without unionization."

Manufacturing jobs, the traditional core of the union movement, are going away as plants become more efficient or move south and overseas, where unions are not as strong.

The UAW, one of the most visible unions in Michigan and the United States, is an example of what's happening in the manufacturing sector. With 550,000 members, the UAW is about one-third the size it was in the late 1970s and figures to lose more members in the next few years.

Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. are cutting about 30,000 hourly workers each. Dozens of Michigan-based auto suppliers, including Delphi Corp., Collins & Aikman Corp. and Tower Automotive Inc. are working their way through bankruptcy court and looking to cut their hourly workforce.

Jason Craig, a 33-year-old UAW worker at a Chrysler Group warehouse in Warren, said he hates to see union strength fall in Michigan, a key beachhead in the labor movement for more than 100 years.

Tough times make it even more important for workers to stick together, he said. "Management is going to try to take as much advantage of us as possible," Craig said.

"Only a small proportion of the workforce might find unions to be relevant to their needs," Chaison said. "There's a need to broaden the scope of what can be offered."

While manufacturing unions are taking a hit, a bright spot for union growth can be found in the service sector, said Ruth Milkman, director of the Institute for Industrial Relations at the University of California, Los Angeles.

From 2000 to 2005, the Service Employees International Union, which represents workers in fields such as maintenance, health care support and food preparation, increased membership 10% to 1.5 million, according to filings with the U.S. Department of Labor.

In many ways, service unions are having success because they're fighting for the same issues -- decent wages, basic benefits and some sense of job security -- that manufacturing workers faced decades ago.

"The center of gravity of the whole labor movement has changed," Milkman said. "It's not like the history that people in" Detroit "remember is irrelevant. It's just probably not as relevant to autoworkers as it is to other workers right now."

The fight for basic benefits was relevant to Green, the janitor who jointed the Service Employees International Union, because he had a second child on the way. He had worked at various janitorial jobs for six years before deciding to join the union.

"I just kept looking for a better job, a job that paid more, until I realized that first and foremost, I needed health care," Green said. "The money's going to come, but you need health care."

Unions also struck a chord with Rickie Blocker, a 28-year-old grocery store meat manager for Kroger Co. The Detroit man joined the United Food & Commercial Workers union for job security.

Caidy Thompson, a first officer and union leader at Mesaba Airlines, has seen firsthand what financial pressures can do to a company and its union workforce.

Thompson, 30, is a member of the Air Lines Pilots Association. She was elected in December to represent the 125 first officers based at Detroit Metro Airport, two months after Mesaba filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. She joined Mesaba five years ago.

"When I got hired, the airline industry was doing well," said Thompson, whose father was a union leader as a steelworker in Minnesota. "People in my class that I got hired with said to me, 'Why should I join the union? There's really no point.' "

But that was months before the industry sunk into a post-9/11 slump with layoffs and pay cuts. Thompson says she still believes in unions, especially as her employer tries to cut wages and benefits.

"I never expected the industry to be in the condition that it has been in the last five years," Thompson said. "I definitely believe" the unions "have protected many of our jobs."

"I do think the basic conflict of interest between employers and employees is still there," said UCLA's Milkman. "Workers are going to look for effective forms of representation for their interest."

Even in an industry hit hard by declining jobs and union numbers, Craig, the UAW member, said he's hopeful union influence can increase again during his career.

This is cache, read story here