United We Fall? Worker interest in unions may threaten your business. How will you respond?

The 1990s are over. And with the collapse of the economicbubble, revelations about horrific corporate governance practices,and the layoffs of thousands of Americans, an institution that somepeople have long since written off as dead has been revived: theunion.

In a recent survey for the AFL-CIO, for the first time in nearlytwo decades, the number of nonunion American workers willing tojoin a union has increased. "After seeing so many jobsdestroyed in the recession, Americans are looking for jobprotection," says Jared Bernstein, senior economist at theEconomic Policy Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank. (Unionworkers earn 32 percent more than nonunion workers.)

"In the 1990s, workers had the idea they were free agentsand that ties to a union would only slow them down as they movedaround," says Fred Feinstein, a labor expert at the Universityof Maryland. "But that idea has been decimated, and now peoplejust want security."