The current contract for most unionized Verizon Communications workers doesn't expire until the summer of 2008, and talks aren't expected to begin until next spring. But that didn't stop hundreds of protesters, wearing bright red T-shirts, from noisily making their way through Downtown streets yesterday morning, making their presence known to executives and shareholders at Verizon's annual meeting.

	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Hundreds of Verizon union workers rally yesterday outside the Westin Convention Center Hotel, Downtown, where the company held its annual shareholders meeting. Click photo for larger image. Related coverage Verizon CEO feels unions' wrath with audio

Membership in labor unions has been on the decline for decades, but public relations efforts such as the one put on yesterday have never been more visible. Increasingly, unions are fighting many of their battles in the court of public opinion, using visual props and high-profile events to drum up support for their causes.

"Their power when they had a much more sizable presence was their ability to shut employers down," said Marick F. Masters, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz School of Business.

"With dwindling numbers and declining bargaining pressure, they're not able to do that. The use of community power and political power through these kinds of protests is another way of getting labor's power across."

That power of public persuasion has resulted in several major union victories in the past few years, such as last year's agreement by the University of Miami to allow its contract janitors to vote on unionization via the "card check" process. The university and its cleaning contractor initially had insisted on a formal National Labor Relations Board election through a secret ballot, but changed their minds after students and workers there made national news through sit-ins and a multiweek hunger strike.

Unions generally prefer to organize through card checks, in which a company agrees to recognize a union if a certain percentage of workers sign cards indicating their desire to join, instead of NLRB elections. And they have found public pressure to be one of the most effective ways to encourage, or embarrass, companies into signing card check agreements.

Two years ago in Houston, the Service Employees International Union organized about 5,000 janitors by blocking traffic at busy city intersections and orchestrating nationwide sympathy strikes before five major cleaning companies agreed to accept card checks.

One demand by Verizon protesters yesterday is that the company recognize cards signed by Verizon Business technicians in New York and New England.

Within the shareholder meeting, unions supported resolutions calling for shareholder votes on executive compensation, new rules on golden parachutes and more information about consultants.

"Companies listen, and they see when the public is upset over issues like executive pay, over fairness," said Candice Johnson, spokeswoman for the Communication Workers of America. "Companies know that they have to be responsible to what customers want, and to what shareholders want."

Aside from card checks and annual meetings, public pressure also is used in the course of regular contract negotiations. When the nurses at Allegheny General Hospital were in contract negotiations last year, for example, the Service Employees International Union advertised on billboards and held a candlelight vigil. Janitors in Pittsburgh held a sit-in and hunger strike four years ago, when a change in contractors at one Downtown office building resulted in the dismissal of nine janitors.

"They use any point of leverage that they might have," said Mr. Masters. "They're working harder to organize and to make their voices heard."