Obama urges increase in unions to empower workers

WASHINGTON — President Obama told a group of workers Wednesday they need a unified voice to confront economic problems that have built up over decades, from a "flat-lining" of wages and salaries to changes in technology that have made it easier for employers to do more with less.

"Wages need to rise more quickly," Obama said at an event that organizers dubbed the White House Summit on Worker Voice. "We need jobs to offer the kind of pay and benefits that let people raise a family -- and in order to do that, workers need a voice."

While the nation has recovered from the financial meltdown of 2008-09, Obama said that challenges remain in an economy that in recent decades has shifted from traditional domestic industries to automated globalized businesses that rely on the Internet.

Obama noted that the flattening of wages began decades ago, and that union membership has also fallen in that time.

"As union membership has fallen, inequality has risen," Obama said.

The goal of the White House worker summit is "to explore ways to ensure that working Americans are fully sharing in the benefits of the broad-based economic growth that they are helping to create," said a White House statement.

Obama confident Congress will approve trade pact

Later on Wednesday, Obama took questions from workers and organizers in a forum co-hosted by Coworker.org.

Business groups such as the National Retail Federation described the summit as an administration effort to build up its union political support.

In an article for the NRF website, federation official David French said unions often impede reforms designed to accommodate millennial employees who want more flexible work schedules that emphasize development of skills.

The summit is "a desperate attempt to prop up a dying labor movement and make it seem relevant to a new generation of workers who don't have first-hand experience with a unionized workplace," wrote French, senior vice president for government relations with the retail federation.

While labor unions have backed Obama's political campaigns, the two are at odds over a new development: The proposed new proposed free trade deal involving the U.S. and 11 other Pacific Rim nations.

Hillary Clinton announces opposition to Pacific trade pact

Unions are urging Congress to reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying it will encourage businesses to move jobs overseas.

Obama has said the agreement will lower trade barriers and open more foreign markets to American goods -- but the Trans-Pacific Partnership did not surface during his remarks to an audience that included many union members.

During his time in office, the president has advocated legislation that would make it easier to form or join unions, but he told his backers not to expect much from the current Republican-run Congress. He instead urged them to lobby state and local lawmakers on items like minimum wage hikes and paid leave policies.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which disputed much of Obama's economic analysis, said in a blog post that it appears "part of the reason for the entire summit is not so much to give workers a 'voice' but rather to tell them how the White House wants them to use it."