(NYT52) OAKLAND -- May 31, 2005 -- TELECOM-LABOR-2 -- Comcast employee, Ernie Baker, left wearing ball cap, and Frank Manibusan, an SBC technician, at the Communications Workers of America union hall in Oakland, May 31, 2005. Even as unions struggle nationwide, with just 12.5 percent of the total workforce unionized in 2004 compared with 22 percent in 1980, they face a particularly bleak future in the telecommunications industry. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)