Aug. 31--PITTSFIELD -- Union membership is not as high today as it was when General Electric was running full throttle, but organized labor is still a viable force here, Berkshire labor leaders say.

"Today, we're as strong as ever, but not as huge as we used to be because the jobs just aren't there," said Alfred Shogry, the president of the Berkshire Central Labor Council, which represents 22 Berkshire County labor unions.

He and others spoke about the past, present and future of Berkshire unions in advance of Labor Day tomorrow, the federal holiday established in 1894 to celebrate organized labor.

Shogry, who retired from GE in 1992 following a 41-year career, was president of the International Union of Electronic (IUE) workers Local 253, which represented the company's white collar employees.

At one point, he said his union represented 600 salaried workers, while IUE Local 254, which represented the company's hourly wage earners, had nearly 10,000.

While those numbers have shrunk, Shogry said the workers unions represent are still highly skilled and remain a source of union bargaining strength.

Among the biggest changes, he said, is in the character of contract talks between labor and management. They are much more cooperative since the mid 1980s, he explained, because neither side wants costly strikes.

The attitude of management used to be "take it or leave it," he said of contract

offers. "Now, it's more a two-way street."

Wages and benefits are still important, Shogry went on, but job security has become the leading labor concern since so many American manufacturing contracts are going to developing countries overseas.

He is hoping free-trade agreements that have contributed to those losses may be revised in the next few years to give American labor "a level playing field" with foreign workers who do not get the kinds of wages, benefits and environmental safeguards we have here. By that, he emphasized that conditions for overseas labor need to be improved.

"It would open doors for us to be competitive with the foreign companies," he said.

Within the United States, he said union wages in the Berkshires are competitive with those in other regions, but the cost of energy in New England discourages many new manufacturers from located here.

"In the old days," said Shogry, "GE was a fantastic place to go to work. The benefits were great....You got up in the morning, you wanted to go to work."

The company's Pittsfield workforce reached an all-time high of 13,645 in wartime 1943.