Labor Day is coming soon and presents a good time to assess how we are doing with work, wages, employment, opportunity and the dignity of work in Washington state.

Recent news reports would have us believe that organized labor is disorganizing and that employment trends are up in our state. But digging beneath the headlines reveals a far more positive story for union workers and a far more complex story for overall employment.

Consider that home health care workers, whose work is underpaid and undervalued, have gained a decent wage increase and health care coverage. That the machinists and engineers at Boeing have begun negotiations for their next contracts. That teachers will receive the cost-of-living adjustment that the voters approved back in 2000, that state employees finally have a collective-bargaining contract and that most grocery store workers still make a living wage and have decent benefits.

All this good news is the result of unions doing their jobs, organizing workers and representing and advocating for them.

For the overall picture, over the past year, payroll employment increased by 80,000 jobs. We now have more jobs in Washington than in 2000. Looks like the recession is finally behind us.

Not so fast … people continue to migrate into our state, the baby boom echo generation is moving into work and the job market is crowded with people who had given up looking for work but who now think they might have a chance. Washington would have to end 2005 with 167,000 more jobs than existed in 2000 in order to enjoy the same rate of employment.

The reality is that while the number of jobs has increased, so has the percent of unemployed workers. So what kind of work prospects do job searchers have?

For those who have gained a college education, professional and business services offer a lucrative start. The average monthly earnings are almost $5,000 a month. But the problem is that this has been a no-growth sector for the past four years.

How about getting a technical degree from our community colleges? This might pave a pathway into manufacturing. But employment in manufacturing peaked in 1998, and we are still missing 92,000 of those jobs.

Health and social services comprise one sector of the economy that has remained immune from the recession. A chronic disease or a heart attack can’t be put off until the economy picks up. Employment in health care has grown by almost 30,000 in the past five years.

And depending what you do, the pay can be very good. The average pay in hospitals is close to $4,000 a month. Right now there is a shortage of nurses, so that pathway looks promising. And these jobs are predominantly union jobs, so workers have the clout to gain and maintain professional compensation.

Another area of growth is the hospitality industry. But we don’t want to tilt our state into an economy dependent on tourism. The average wage of food service workers in 2004 was $1,348 per month. That is not much money to feed a family. The only thing keeping the bottom from falling out for these workers, especially in a recession, is our minimum wage that enables a worker to keep up with inflation.

The problem with the health and hospitality sectors is that they don’t create a surplus. They use money that comes from other surplus-creating economic activity to employ people to care for people.

So where does that money come from? It can come from new cutting-edge technology.

Sonicare is a good example. Sonicare started up just 13 years ago, pioneering the electronic toothbrush. While it took me a while to stick a vibrating stick into my mouth, now I, too, am a believer. So are a lot of other people – 10 million of these things have been sold.

Sonicare employs almost 600 people in Snoqualmie and Auburn. The company doesn’t offshore the manufacture of these toothbrushes. Everything is American-made. And that means that the profits find their way back to the managers and workers in King County.

As these new technologies catch on, they can create good-paying jobs. Combine this with cooperation between workers and managers, and a voice and respect for labor, and we have an economic development strategy that creates profits for business, opportunity for workers and their families and a surplus that can pay for good health care and high-quality education for us and our children.

That’s the future for work in Washington.

John Burbank, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute (www.eoionline.org), writes every other Wednesday. Write to him in care of the institute at 1900 Northlake Way, Suite 237, Seattle, WA 98103. His e-mail address is john@eoionline.org.