Yes, we should all be encouraged by the increase in union membership numbers in 2007 ("Union membership shows gain in '07," Jan. 26). But the figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are somewhat misleading.

The BLS calculates its data by dividing the number of union members by the entire U.S. workforce, not just those who are actually eligible to form a union. Unfortunately, this group has been drastically shrinking under the Bush-appointed National Labor Relations Board. Under relentless corporate influence, the NRLB has stripped millions of workers of their right to organize and improve their work lives by redefining them as supervisors, independent contractors, or other non-employees, and thereby excluding them from protection under federal labor law. Just in the fall of 2006, upwards of 8 million workers lost such rights.

Without a labor board that actually protects workers' rights, or enactment of legislation such as the Employee Free Choice Act to restore our rights to form unions, we cannot expect a significant rise in union membership. If the status quo remains, the outlook for union membership numbers in 2008 is bleak.

MARY BETH MAXWELL
Executive Director,
American Rights at Work,
Washington, D.C.

What a shock: The Pennsylvania Earned Income Tax Officers, Administrators and Collectors Administration opposes simplifying the EIT collection process, preferring to keep their duplicative, parasitic numbers high.

The current situation is doubtless yet another reason why the state lags the nation in job creation. Doubtless, too, the spineless wonders in Harrisburg will bow to the special interest pressure of this "trade group," ensuring that the taxpayers of Pennsylvania continue to be saddled with a Byzantine, wasteful tax-collection system.

Will the taxpayers of Pennsylvania ever revolt? Or does everyone else but me hold a sinecure with the state of "Taxsylvania"?

SHAWN PETERSON
Stowe