CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Workers in West Virginia were about half as likely to be represented by a union in 2007 as in 1983. Despite that, state labor leaders say they see better times ahead for their unions.

"I think the future is bright in West Virginia for labor, much more than in the recent past," said Ken Hall, international vice president of the Teamsters and president of Teamsters Local 175 in South Charleston.

"The last 18 months have been a very difficult time," Hall said. "We have managed to keep most of our members working and have not seen some of the major plant closures some areas of the country have seen."

Over the past five years, the West Virginia AFL-CIO has gained 20,000 members, said Kenneth Perdue, who was re-elected as president of the state labor group last month.

Building coalitions is critical to the growth of unions, believes Larry Matheney, who was re-elected as the state AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer.

"During my lifetime, this is the most polarized I have ever seen the people of West Virginia," he said. "We need to being people back together and work to raise the living standards of workers in West Virginia."

Exploding health-care costs are a major challenge that unions face.

"Our workers shouldn't have to spend 20 percent of their wages seeking quality health care," Matheney said. "And they should have defined pension plans that are not subject to Wall Street."

Perdue said defined pension plans are needed, so 401(k) plans "don't put workers totally at the whim of what is going on in the stock market."

Ballooning health-care costs have driven some companies to leave West Virginia or reduce their work force, Perdue believes, including companies like Century Aluminum in Ravenswood and Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel in the Northern Panhandle.

Some AFL-CIO members now pay up to $8 an hour out of their wages to buy health-care coverage for themselves and their families, Matheney said.

"A person making minimum wage cannot afford that. ... My son and a friend were going to start a small engineering firm. But he decided not to because he has two children and has to pay for health care," Matheney said. "Health-care costs can hurt entrepreneurship."

Perdue also hopes Congress passes the Employee Free Choice Act that would require employers to negotiate contracts once a majority of employees sign union cards.

"When unions are strong, people spend money," Perdue said. "This legislation will not destroy businesses, but make them prosper."

Opponents argue the legislation would eliminate secret ballot votes at workplaces.

Hall believes Congress will pass some version of the proposed EFCA next year.

"Once employees are given the right to choose, without fear of retaliation, we will see a substantial increase in union membership. Polls show that when employees are given the right to choose, without threats of losing their jobs, they overwhelmingly favor being represented by a union."

He believes long-term prosperity is based on middle-class wages.

"In recent years, there has been a push to eliminate the middle class. I am fed up with CEOs making 400 times as much as hourly workers. I don't have a problem with CEOs making more money.

"But it went from CEOs making 27 times as much as the average worker a generation ago to making more than 400 times as much today," Hall said.

Matheney believes the country can develop new industries that provide "green" jobs.

"We need new technology for the coal industry, especially with carbon-capture technology. I believe we can mine coal and also be cognizant of our environment."

Between 1983 and 2007, the percentage of U.S. workers covered by union contracts dropped from 23.3 percent to 13.3 percent, according to the 2009 edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States published by the Census Bureau.

In West Virginia, that percentage dropped from 28.5 percent to 14.7 percent in those same years. In 1983, West Virginia ranked eighth in the percentage of workers covered by union contracts, dropping to 18th by 2007.

Over the past generation, West Virginia's work force shifted from jobs in manufacturing, mining and construction to service-sector jobs in retail stores, hospitals, nursing homes and child-care centers.

The percentage of workers with union contracts dropped as thousands of jobs disappeared when steel, aluminum, chemical and glass plants closed.

In April, John Schmitt, an economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., published a study that showed West Virginia's union service workers earned a median wage of $18.44 an hour, compared to $12.47 an hour for their non-union counterparts, between 2004 and 2007.

Service workers represented by unions were 26 percent more likely to get employer-sponsored health insurance and 23 percent more likely to get employer-funded pension plans, Schmitt found.

Reach Paul J. Nyden at pjny...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-5164.