The State of U.S. Labor & Building Union Power

[Omaha Steve]

http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/the-state-of-us-labor-building-union-power/

Posted on November 18, 2008 by dsalaborblogmoderator

The State of Organized Labor in the U.S.

By Elaine Bernard

It is sobering to note that U.S. unions have been in decline for the entire worklife of the vast majority of today’s workers. It was long ago, in 1955, when unions reached their highest density (that is, the proportion of the total workforce which are union members). Back then, one out of every three workers was a union member. Leaders of the autoworkers, steelworkers and other industrial unions were nationally

recognized spokespersons for the majority of working people. At this level of representation, unions set the standard for wages and working conditions not only for their members but also for the non-union sector as well.

Today, unions have been in steady decline for over a full 50 years. In 2007, only one in eight workers was a union member nationally and less than one in 12 is a union member in the private sector. Whole regions of the country and sectors of the economy are virtually without unions. With unionized establishments only a tiny minority in many industries and services, employers have a free hand in setting wages, benefits, and working conditions. And increasingly, the non-union majority is chipping away at the standards of the
shrinking union minority.

Unions, it seems, grow by leaps, such as the last great organizing explosion in the late 1930s and 1940s when the U.S. labor movement grew from a small, exclusive club of skilled craft workers to a more inclusive movement of millions of industrial, manufacturing, and service workers. This historic upsurge not only transformed labor but also transformed American society. Unions as institutions and union members as skilled organizers, supported and provided resources, activists and inspiration for many other social ovements. As well, unions sought through public policy initiatives and political action to practice social solidarity, winning benefits first for themselves thorough collective bargaining and then spreading them to the rest of the workforce through political action and support for government social programs.

From their peak density in 1955 to the mid 1970s, unions continued to grow, but not as quickly as the workforce as a whole. As union density declined, however, the ability of the organized sector to set the standards for all workers in a given industry waned and employers became emboldened in resisting organizing efforts by unions. For many years, this decline seemed insignificant, and union leaders often dismissed the fall in numbers as simply the normal ebbs and flows in hiring, retirements, and changes in business and the economy. Union secretary treasurers duly reported modest growth in membership each year, but labor’s strength in setting the standard for wages, benefits, and working conditions for American workers was being whittled away. By the mid 1970s, the weakness became even more apparent as union membership started to decline absolutely - not only density but also the total number of union members in the U.S. started to decline.

Further contributing to disguising the overall decline in the labor movement was the unionization of public sector workers and education workers. While private sector unions were declining, many public employees were winning bargaining rights and transforming their organizations from supervisor and management dominated societies and associations to democratic unions that strongly advocated for the interest of their members. However, the constant incremental decline in union membership overall was not offset by the growing organization of public employees. With public employees only 13 percent of the workforce, the continuing decline in unions in the remaining 87 percent eventually impacted the whole movement.

FULL story and graphics at link.