northern or the eastern regions. As if these difficulties were not enough, years of negative publicity about corruption in the big Teamsters Union and other unions have hurt the labor movement. Even unions' past successes in boosting wages and benefits and improving the work environment have worked against further gains by making newer, younger workers conclude they no longer need unions to press their causes. Union arguments that they give workers a voice in almost all aspects of their jobs, including work-site safety and work grievances, are often ignored. The kind of independent-minded young workers who sparked the dramatic rise of high-technology computer firms have little interest in belonging to organizations that they believe quash independence. Perhaps the biggest reason unions faced trouble in recruiting new members in the late 1990s, however, was the surprising strength of the economy. In October and November 1999, the unemployment rate had fallen to 4.1 percent. Economists said only people who were between jobs or chronically unemployed were out of work. For all the uncertainties economic changes had produced, the abundance of jobs restored confidence that America was still a land of opportunity.