Most of my professional life has been spent as a member of a union (The Newspaper Guild) and I'm under no illusion that the working class would be better off had things been left to the largesse of the bosses, or to the vagaries of a cutthroat, free-market meritocracy. Regardless of the industry, virtually all of the workplace comforts and benefits we take for granted today exist solely because of battles fought and won long ago by once-powerful unions.

Forty years ago, nearly one private-sector worker in three belonged to a union. Today, that number has dwindled to around 10 percent and there's little to suggest that a revival is nigh. Although unions remain fairly strong in the blue-collar world, that world is shrinking. (Can you say "technology"?) Consequently, labor unions don't wield the political clout they used to.

It's sad to see the anemic state of organized labor in this country today. Worse, it kills me to admit that, to a large degree, the erosion of the labor movement is the fault of the unions themselves. Their refusal or inability to change with the times, to keep the movement relevant in the face of globalization and the digital conversion -- the so-called new economy -- has been disastrous.

Disastrous, I might add, for union members and nonunion workers alike.

Just as the Democratic Party has largely ceded the battlefield to Republican stridency in recent years, so, too, has organized labor wilted before an economy where the unrestrained market rules all. The result is unsurprising: The rich get richer, the shareholder is valued more than the employee, jobs are eliminated in the name of bottom-line efficiency (remember when they called firing people "right-sizing"?) and the gulf between the rich and the working class grows wider every year.

You see this libertarian ethos everywhere, but nowhere more clearly than in the technology sector, where the number of union jobs can be counted on one hand. Tech is the Wild West as far as the job market goes and the robber barons on top of the pile aim to keep it that way. They'll offshore your job to save a few bucks or lay you off at the first sign of a slump, but they're the first to scream, "You're stifling innovation!" at any attempt to control the industry or provide job security for the people who do the actual work.

Because so many younger tech workers came of age at a time when unionism was in undignified full retreat, the bosses have had an easy time selling them on the virtues of the unfettered free market. Many have paid a price for buying in. A lot of repossessed condos are no doubt papered with worthless stock options.

Those weaned on an Ayn Rand kind of individualism aren't likely to appreciate the debt they owe to the American labor movement, or why restoring it to health is in their interests, too. Until the ax falls; then they understand. I've known talented people who have lost their jobs with little more than a shrug. The shrugging usually stops, however, when finding a comparable job proves more difficult than they ever imagined.

In terms of relative working conditions, there's a parallel to be made with the early part of the 20th century. The work may be white collar rather than blue, computers instead of machinery, but in terms of job security and bargaining power, the American worker hasn't been at such a decided disadvantage in decades.

But things may be starting to change. Just maybe.

Labor is finally waking up to the new economy, and a younger leadership understands its obligation to be there for the new generation of America's working class. The key is to convince this generation that unity is strength and that a balanced workplace -- one that places the employee's interests on a par with management's -- is healthy for all concerned. Can it be done?

Yes, says Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech, a union representing technology workers. Asked by e-mail if there's a place for the traditional labor movement in the tech industry, he responded: "Absolutely. Efforts such as Alliance@IBM and WashTech are leading the way in the labor movement's organizing efforts in the new economy.

"Increasingly, white-collar workers' wages are stagnant, and companies are outsourcing jobs overseas and replacing U.S. employees with guest workers. These are all issues and reasons why employees would organize: to have a voice on the job."

And the interest in organizing is there, too, Courtney said.

"Corporations have waged a 40-year campaign against unionization in this country," he said. "We can't assume that employees are anti-union. They just have not had the opportunity to hear from unions on why they should organize due to the corporate campaign."

Courtney points to the situation at Cingular, where 20,000 employees recently organized under the Communications Workers of America after management agreed not to involve itself in the workers' choice of unionization.

"This is a young work force," Courtney said. "If it was anti-union no one would have joined."

So, will we ever see a unionized Microsoft? With his own union working on the Redmond behemoth, Courtney certainly won't rule it out.

"WashTech has been actively trying to build the union at the company. (It's been) recently reported how wages at the company have been stagnant while profits are soaring, and that the review process has become an unfair management tool. These are core issues that a union can address."

-- Tony Long is copy chief at Wired News.