With just 11 percent of the state's workforce unionized, labor here doesn't have the same brawny presence it does in other states. And yet unions endure year after year, holding their ground in terms of numbers and clout in the Legislature. They've been a force to contend with in education reform. They work behind the scenes to contribute to their communities. And on occasion, they work with business to accomplish mutual goals. Unions played a pivotal role, for example, in the state's successful workers' compensation reform.

"I'd like to see the myth of `big labor' dispelled," says Christine Trujillo, new president of the New Mexico Federation of Labor AFL-CIO. "There is no big labor. There are coalitions built to advocate for a cause. Business groups have their own unions - they just don't call them unions. They work collectively to push that issue forward. People in the labor movement have been given a bad rap. We don't have big coffers of money."

What accounts for their staying power? A steady succession of strong leaders who are passionate about the labor movement, family traditions of union membership, and perceived need: We may not have sweatshops here anymore, but Corporate America sometimes doesn't seem all that concerned with its workers. You have only to scan the day's headlines to find the latest examples.

New Mexico has about 62,000 union members, but numbers can be deceptive. Unions include retirees in those numbers. But the bargaining unit represented by a union can be much larger because not everyone joins the union, which means its reach is larger.

Union membership has been steady over the last few years but saw a burst of growth in the early 1990s as public employees organized, according to Zane Reeves, a professor of public administration at the University of New Mexico.

With legislation in 1992 that enabled public employee collective bargaining, unions, particularly the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, made enormous inroads in municipalities and counties, says Reeves, who is also a grievance hearing officer for the city. Even though the law expired in 1999 because of a sunset provision, the union movement, "is much stronger, especially among public employees, in New Mexico than it is in Arizona, Texas and Colorado." AFSCME now represents 4,000 of the city's 7,000 employees.

Issues for public employees, Reeves says, are less about pay than benefits and treatment. He sees treatment as an issue with teachers and health-care workers as well. "The most militant unions across the country are teachers' unions." They're concerned about pay, but they're outraged at not being treated like professionals, Reeves says.

It's a different story in the private sector, where union organizing is modest. "I see public-sector unions continuing to grow and private-sector unions continuing to decline," Reeves says.

"It's a hard, hard, hard fight," says Dan Rivera, new executive director of the the New Mexico Federation of Labor AFL-CIO and a former organizer. "The odds are so huge, you can't even look at the odds."

The fact that labor is relatively small in New Mexico reflects the state's economy. "As you look around the state, the major industries are organized," says Mike Swisher, treasurer of the Central New Mexico Labor Council.

"The problem we're having is the number of small businesses we have here. It's a cost issue. Resources are finite," he says. "Do we tackle somebody with 100 employees or somebody who has one?"

Organize and don't stop

The AFL-CIO nationally is a voluntary federation of 64 unions, representing about 13 million people, 34,000 in New Mexico. Of the state's 280 locals, 202 are AFL-CIO affiliates, but that doesn't imply control. Locals, governed by the international union's bylaws, vary in activities, organization and affiliation, Swisher explains.

The AFL-CIO in New Mexico acts as an umbrella organization, coordinating political activities and community services, often working through its four Labor Councils, which are local organizations. The national organization provides a database, information and issues papers.

The heartbeat of a union is organizing, says Rivera. "Organize and don't stop," he says.

Lawrence Sandoval, staff representative of the 6,000-member Communications Workers of America, has been an organizer in Minnesota and Texas. He says New Mexico's progress is slow. "We see people move here who are sometimes astounded at the backward nature of organizing here," he says. And yet the state's unions successfully fend off right-to-work legislation year after year, when other states haven't, he notes.

Other elements of the movement are visibility and mutual support, Rivera says. Unions have made themselves heard in recent years at UNM regents meetings and in the city council. More recently, the AFL-CIO in New Mexico has asked union members to patronize union grocery stores (Albertsons, Safeway, Smiths, Foodtown and Raley's) and supported the United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 1564 in picketing Lowe's Super-Save, which acquired two stores in Albuquerque from the defunct Furrs and didn't hire Furrs' employees or pay what the union considers a living wage.

"It's not just their struggle," Rivera says of the Lowe's dispute. "We provide support. You're not in it by yourself. The movement is so critical, everybody has to be in it for everybody."

Rallies are important, both to educate members and the public. "You've really got to raise the profile, not just in the union community but in all the community," Rivera says.

Wal-Mart has been a favorite target for rallies and boycotts. The giant retailer may be the nation's biggest corporation, but it's also become the bad boy among social activists for poor labor relations, sweatshop-produced goods and a scourge on small business.

"They stand for everything that's evil on the business side," says Rivera.

Labor Watch, a newsletter of the conservative Capital Research Center, says the "corporate campaign" is an organizing tactic of the national AFL-CIO. "A corporate campaign is a form of reputational warfare waged through broadsides, half-truths, innuendo, and a staccato rhythm of castigation, litigation, legislation and regulation. The corporate campaign moves the battle over union organizing and contract disputes off the negotiating table and into the streets."

"You've gotta have a villain," Rivera says. "If you just throw your issues out there, so what?"

The Central Labor Council sponsored recently a "No Blank Check For China" rally outside Honeywell Power Systems, urging U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson to vote against permanent normal trade relations with China. Unions have frequently taken issue with Wilson, a Republican, over issues related to health care and social security.

While conservatives castigate the campaigns as throwbacks to political radicalism of the 1960s, union organizers see themselves picking up the fallen flag of social injustice, a slogan unheard for years, and adding it to their existing plank of economic justice.

"The labor movement has changed so much. We're back to being involved in a lot of social issues," Rivera says.

Another aspect of union membership is giving back to the community. Union efforts on behalf of United Way are so extensive, it requires a full-time coordinator. Mike Swisher, a sheet metal worker, became the AFL-CIO Community Services Liaison at the United Way of Central New Mexico in 1986. Swisher involves union members in United Way fund-raising campaigns and helps coordinate such activities as the postal workers' food drive; the plumbers' Heat's On Program, which helps elderly people with their furnaces in September; and Dad's Day, a day around Father's Day when union members collect money for the Diabetes Research Institute.

Over the years, however, the most tried and true weapon in the union arsenal is still the vote. In the 2000 elections, Rivera says, "We went out to union members and went door to door and engaged them."

Says Sandoval: "We make sure we have workers and worker families who are educated on the issues so they vote on the issues, especially issues affecting working families. The education piece is really critical."

Common ground

Some issues bring business and labor together.

Rivera has begun attending meetings of the Kirtland Partnership, organized to protect Kirtland Air Force Base and its jobs. "I can show them how important we are and be on common ground," he says. And Swisher sits on local and state boards of the Workforce Investment Act.

Another example of cooperation is the Communications Workers' support of Qwest's re-entry in the long-distance market. "It will be helpful to workers in New Mexico for Qwest to provide more services," Sandoval says. He says it would not only improve Qwest's stock prices and competitive position, but the rates of the biggest providers will tend to come down.

Sandoval describes CWA's relationship with Qwest as positive in New Mexico .

"They've tried to work with the local officers to protect jobs. In other states the response might be different," he says.

And the Mountain West Regional Council of Carpenters provides a workers' compensation plan with attractive rates to contractors signing its agreement with Associated General Contractors. It was a move the carpenters made a decade ago to help contractors then struggling with high workers' comp rates, says Dennis Roberts, AGC's director of labor, public and industry relations. "It's unique across the country," he says.

Finally, Swisher notes the union contribution to business through its commercial real estate program, Build New Mexico, and Union Savings Bank.

"Business and unions share a lot of the same issues," Swisher says.

"There's not quite as much fighting that goes on in New Mexico between unions and management. I think economic realities dictate a lot of that. If we can't bring some decent, high-paying jobs here, we're not in a position to organize anybody."

Workers' compensation reform

One collaboration between business and labor that's been remarkably successful is the state's 10-year-old workers compensation reform.

In the late 1980s, workers' comp coverage was on the ropes. Costs had spiraled so high that insurance carriers were leaving the state; employers who could find coverage couldn't afford it. The threat to business and jobs was so imminent that representatives of business and labor came together, assisted by insurers and medical providers, to hammer out a new system.

The reform act essentially drove lawyers from the process and moved workers' comp transactions from the courts to a newly created no-fault system, which provided care and treatment to injured employees and promised employers protection from lawsuits. Legislators promised five years with no meddling to allow the system to work and established the Workers' Compensation Advisory Council, made up of three labor and three business members to keep an eye on things.

The system has worked so well that premiums plunged 70 percent after 1993, although they've risen somewhat recently.

"Without labor, we would never have gotten here," says Ty Hise, a business member of the council who participated in the reform. "It couldn't have been done without them. Even now we have issues. It behooves us to continue working together."

The council itself is a success story as well. In monthly meetings notable for their civility, business and labor members have heard each other's issues as well as problems brought up by insurers, medical providers, lawyers and the public.

Sandoval, a member of the council for three years and chairman for two, says it's a good place for business and labor to come together. Members try hard to reach consensus, he says. Votes are usually unanimous.

"This group is very different. It's relatively informal and diverse," he says. "It's amazing how open the discussion is between the council and the audience. The interesting thing is to get that level of information. You end up seeing a much broader picture."

Hise recalls many occasions of serious discussion and give and take among council members. She herself has angered some members of the business community by taking labor's side when she thought the situation warranted.

However, labor members continue to feel that the workers' comp law doesn't go far enough to protect injured workers.

"We've probably been too passive," says Jeep Gilliland, recently retired as president of state AFL-CIO. "We've worked to keep it stable, to keep New Mexico competitive, but the longer I'm involved, the more sure I am we haven't represented the worker fairly."

Last year the Legislature passed a bill, advanced by the council, that delivered modest improvements for workers. "We believe there's a lot of room for improvement," says Sandoval. "We understand that it's slow to come about."

A parallel group is the Workers Compensation Business-Labor Coalition, which develops information and brings it to the council. The two groups often join to push legislation.

Changing lives

For all their difficulties, union leaders are optimistic.

"We tend to be very conservative about labor issues," Sandoval says. "We need to look at the fact that labor has been instrumental in changing the lives of working people." Unions have given us the 40-hour work week and the Family Medical Leave Act, he says. "We forget to sound our horn. We can make changes - positive changes for both management and labor. It's not devastating for a labor force to be union."

Says Swisher, "I think we're starting to do some things differently, changing the way we present ourselves to the public."

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