Riggs faced her dilemma after she was hired last April at the new Qwest Communications call center in Logan, where the Communication Workers of America was busy organizing the center's work force.

"Prior to last year, I really hadn't thought too much about labor unions," Riggs said. "I never before worked for a company whose employees were organized. I really didn't understand the benefits of joining."

She knew where to turn for advice, though.

Riggs' father had been a long-time telephone company employee - and union member. He told her simply that if she was willing to take advantage of the benefits a union helped provide - often in the form of higher wages and improved working conditions - then she should do her part and join.

Utah's labor unions, much like unions in other states, are trying to regroup after decades of declining membership and deteriorating power. And Riggs' dilemma epitomizes the educational challenges unions face in a right-to-work state where labor organizations frequently are viewed as suspect and corporate managers generally are held in high esteem.

Forty years ago, nearly a quarter of the state's workers belonged to labor unions. It was a time when many members wore hard hats and carried their lunch pails to work. Today, that percentage is down drastically, to 5.4 percent, according to figures gathered by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Garth Magnum, a retired University of Utah professor of economics who also during his career served as a labor arbitrator, said unions face a daunting challenge.

"The kinds of occupations and the kinds of industries where labor organizations flourished have declined over the years," he said. "Geneva Steel is gone and with the productivity in the coal mines and at Kennecott [Utah Copper] there hasn't been the need for them to seek out new employees" who could bolster the ranks of the unions.

The workers who are in demand in growing industries today, such as those in the high-tech sector, get their wage, salary and benefit increases primarily because their skills and knowledge are in short supply, Mangum said.

"It is far different from the time when industries trained their workers on the job," he said.

Although some in Utah might argue that unions have their place when it comes to protecting workers against exploitation, others question their relevance in a time when many businesses are offering wage-and-benefit packages similar to what labor organizations fought for in the past.

"When unions were strong they were the ones fighting to ensure safe working conditions and restrictions on hours of work," said Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper. "But a lot of those issues now are automatically taken care of by federal and state regulations. Also, the U.S. economy has improved so much that the standard of living for most Americans now is well above what it was when the union membership was more widespread."

Computer programmer Jim Hanks offers much the same sentiment.

"When things were really unfair, labor unions stood up for the rights of workers," said Hanks, a who once worked at Geneva Steel. "They have their good and bad sides, though. If you look at companies like Kennecott or USX, I think the unions [won wage and benefit concessions that] priced a lot of their members right out of a job."

Moreover, Hanks believes that occasionally just the threat a union might organize has been enough to keep some business owners and managers in line.

Utah union activists, though, believe there are plenty of workers in the state who would benefit from being organized.

Rather than sitting around and mourning their losses, unions in Utah are going on the offensive. They are organizing and recruiting again, and renewing their call for workers to join together and strive for better pay and improved benefits.

"Those unions that are unwilling to go out and organize are like dinosaurs that are never going to change," said Dan O'Shea, senior representative for the Southwest Carpenters and its four locals in the Salt Lake City area. "If you can't change, you're doomed to extinction."

O'Shea holds up the Southwest Carpenters union as an example of what can be done when an organization is willing to rethink its strategy and commit resources to expanding its membership base.

Utah unions typically are small and often lack the resources to fully educate workers about the benefits of membership, he said. But about two years ago, the Carpenters union changed its strategy from a local to a more regional approach.

Instead of using only local resources for organizing, the union on a regional level committed its time and energies to those states and communities that it believed could generate the greatest return in terms of new membership.

Utah, with its growing economy and booming construction industry, was one of the areas that captured the union's attention. "Two years ago, we had 300 members in our locals and contracts with seven companies," O'Shea said. "Today, we have more than 1,500 members and contracts with 65 companies. And we've just scratched the surface."

Steve Booth, vice president of the AFL-CIO in Utah, conceded that many labor unions in the state and nationwide grew complacent over the years.

"I think that complacency has been shattered, what with the current administration in Washington, D.C., being anti-union to the hilt," Booth said. "Unions are going back to organizing, which is something that always hasn't been a priority."

And nowhere do labor unions see more opportunity than among the growing number of documented immigrant laborers who often accept low-wage jobs with few benefits and poor working conditions.

Immigrants traditionally were considered part of the bedrock of the labor movement, Booth said.

"Unions are returning to their roots. When you have unscrupulous business owners knowingly hiring immigrants to take advantage of them by paying low wages, there are opportunities to organize. It is what unions are all about."

For Lee Linford, president of Communications Workers of America Local 7705 in Logan, the biggest challenge in growing the union was overcoming the lack of education among potential members about the benefits that a union can provide.

"We sat down with a lot of people and explained the whole [contract] bargaining process," he said. "And it did pay off."

CWA Local 7705, prior to Qwest opening its Logan call center, had about 130 members. It now represents more than 500 workers, including about 60 percent to 65 percent of the call center's 560 employees.

Riggs, who serves as an area representative for Local 7705 at the Qwest call center, said for her benefits of being a union member are tangible.

"I used to work for a company where I had to pay $500 a month for medical benefits," she said. "Now I work at a company where I pay $30 a month. And that all came about because of the presence of the union."

Qwest, however, argues that that the benefit packages it offers were arrived at by mutual consent. "Both the union and Qwest are committed to doing the best we can for workers and our customers," said Gary Younger, Qwest's Utah spokesman.

Riggs said she still frequently finds potential members hesitant about joining "until they see what we can do for them. If someone is having a problem at work, we're there to give them advice. And we don't limit our help just because someone isn't part of the union."

steve@sltrib.com