Labor unions in the United States
Encyclopedia
Labor unions in the United States are legally recognized as representatives of workers in many industries. The most prominent unions are among public sector
employees such as teachers and police. Activity by labor union
s in the United States
today centers on collective bargaining
over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership and on representing their members if management attempts to violate contract provisions. Although much smaller compared to their peak membership in the 1950s, American unions also remain an important political factor, both through mobilization of their own memberships and through coalitions with like-minded activist organizations around issues such as immigrant rights, trade policy, health care, and living wage
campaigns.
Today most unions are aligned with one of two larger umbrella organizations: the AFL-CIO
created in 1955 and the Change to Win Federation
, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Both advocate policies and legislation on behalf of workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics. The AFL-CIO is especially concerned with global trade issues.
In 2010, total labor union density (the percentage of workers—both public and private—belonging to a labor union) was 11.4% in the United States. For comparison, it was 18.6% in Germany, 27.5% in Canada, and 70% in Finland. Union membership in the private sector has in recent years fallen under 9% — levels not seen since 1932. Unions allege that employer-incited opposition has contributed to this decline in membership.
Unions are currently advocating new federal legislation that would allow workers to elect union representation by simply signing a support card. The current process established by federal law requires at least 30% of employees to sign cards for the union, then wait 45 to 90 days for a federal official to conduct a secret ballot election in which a simple majority
of the employees must vote for the union in order to obligate the employer to bargain. Unions report that, under the present system, many employers use the 45 to 90 day period to conduct anti-union campaigns. Some opponents of this legislation fear that removing secret balloting from the process will lead to the intimidation and coercion of workers on behalf of the unions. During the 2008 elections, the Employee Free Choice Act
had widespread support of many legislators in the House and Senate, and of the President. Since then, support for the "card check" provisions of the EFCA subsided substantially.
mushrooming overnight into a major force in the late 1880s; it then collapsed because of poor organization. The American Federation of Labor
, led until his death in 1924 by Samuel Gompers
, proved much more durable. It was a coalition of many national unions, and helped resolve jurisdictional disputes, created citywide coalitions that helped coordinate strikes, and after 1907 became a player in national politics, usually on the side of the Democrats. The Railroad Brotherhoods
, while separate from the AFL, formed national networks in the late 19th century. Rapid growth came in 1900-1919, but was followed by a long decline until the Wagner Act of 1935 led to an invigoration of the labor movement, which finally became a permanent factor in heavy industry. The CIO
under John L. Lewis
split off and competed aggressively for membership. The AFL was always larger and both federations grew enormously during World War II. After the Communists in the CIO were purged in 1946-1948, a merger into the AFL-CIO became possible in 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act
of 1947 was a conservative measure that weakened the unions, and highly publicized reports of corruption in the Teamsters
and other unions hurt the image of the labor movement during the 1950s. Unions formed a backbone element of the New Deal Coalition
and of Modern liberalism in the United States. Membership and power crested around 1970. Private sector union membership then began a steady decline that continues into the 2010s, but the membership of public sector unions grew steadily.
(AFL-CIO) or the Change to Win Federation
, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005-2006. Both organizations advocate policies and legislation favorable to workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics favoring the Democratic party but not exclusively so. The AFL-CIO
is especially concerned with global trade and economical issues.
Recently unions have become a larger issue within the 2008 "Economic Crisis" with the three largest automakers seeking $50 billion in loans in order to stay viable. According to some Senators 'costly labor agreements' including pension and health plans put the U.S. automakers at a disadvantage to foreign companies resulting in their collapse. Others point out that the United Auto Workers has made extensive concessions to the car companies over the last twenty years in order to help the companies remain competitive, and allege that the automakers' recent troubles are better ascribed to other factors.
Private sector union members are tightly regulated by the National Labor Relations Act
(NLRA), passed in 1935. The law is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB), an independent federal agency
. Public sector unions are regulated partly by federal and partly by state laws. In general they have shown robust growth rates, for wages and working conditions are set through negotiations with elected local and state officials. The unions' political power thus comes into play, and of course the local government cannot threaten to move elsewhere, nor is there any threat from foreign competition.
To join a traditional labor union, workers must either be given voluntary recognition from their employer or have a majority of workers in a bargaining unit vote for union representation. In either case, the government must then certify the newly formed union. Other forms of unionism include minority unionism, Solidarity unionism
, and the practices of organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World
, which do not always follow traditional organizational models.
Public sector worker unions are governed by labor laws and labor boards in each of the 50 states. Northern states typically model their laws and boards after the NLRA and the NLRB. In other states, public workers have no right to establish a union as a legal entity. (About 40% of public employees in the USA do not have the right to organize a legally established union.)
Once the union has won the support of a majority of the bargaining unit and is certified in a workplace, it has the sole authority to negotiate the conditions of employment. However, under the NLRA, if a minority of employees voted for a union, those employees can then form a union which represents the rights of only those members who voted for the union. This minority model was once widely used, but was discarded when unions began to consistently win majority support. Unions are beginning to revisit the "members only" model of unionism because of new changes to labor law which unions view as curbing workers' ability to organize.
The employer and the union write the terms and conditions of employment in a legally binding contract. When disputes arise over the contract, most contracts call for the parties to resolve their differences through a grievance process to see if the dispute can be mutually resolved. If the union and the employer still cannot settle the matter, either party can choose to send the dispute to arbitration
, where the case is argued before a neutral third party.
In the 1940s and 1950s, links to organized crime were discovered in U.S. unions, hurting their image. Since the 1970s, union membership has been steadily declining in the private sector while growing in the public sector. Right-to-work statutes
forbid unions from negotiating agency shop
s. Thus, while unions do exist in "right-to-work" states, they are typically weaker.
Members of labor unions enjoy "Weingarten Rights
." If management questions the union member on a matter that may lead to discipline or other changes in working conditions, union members can request representation by a union representative. Weingarten Rights
are named for the first Supreme Court decision to recognize those rights.
The NLRA goes farther in protecting the right of workers to organize unions. It protects the right of workers to engage in any "concerted activity" for mutual aid or protection. Thus, no union connection is needed. Concerted activity "in its inception involves only a speaker and a listener, for such activity is an indispensable preliminary step to employee self-organization."
Union density (the percentage of workers belonging to unions) has been declining since the late 1940s, however. Almost 36% of American workers were represented by unions in 1945. Historically, the rapid growth of public employee unions since the 1960s has served to mask an even more dramatic decline in private-sector union membership.
At the apex of union density in the 1940s, only about 9.8% of public employees were represented by unions, while 33.9% of private, non-agricultural workers had such representation. In this decade, those proportions have essentially reversed, with 36% of public workers being represented by unions while private sector union density had plummeted to around 7%. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent survey indicates that union membership in the US has risen to 12.4% of all workers, from 12.1% in 2007. For a short period, private sector union membership rebounded, increasing from 7.5% in 2007 to 7.6% in 2008. However, that trend has since reversed. In 2009, the union density for private sector stood at 7.2%.
sought to educate union members to deal with important contemporary workplace and labor law issues of the day. The Harvard Trade Union Program is currently part of a broader initiative at Harvard Law School
called the Labor and Worklife Program that deals with a wide variety of labor and employment issues from union pension investment funds to the effects of nanotechnology
on labor markets and the workplace.
use the term jurisdiction to refer to their claims to represent workers who perform a certain type of work and the right of their members to perform such work. For example, the work of unloading containerized cargo at United States
ports, which the International Longshoremen's Association
the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have claimed rightfully should be assigned to workers they represent. A jurisdictional strike
is a concerted refusal to work undertaken by a union to assert its members' right to such job assignments and to protest the assignment of disputed work to members of another union or to unorganized workers. Jurisdictional strikes occur most frequently in the United States in the construction industry.
Unions also use jurisdiction to refer to the geographical boundaries of their operations, as in those cases in which a national or international union allocates the right to represent workers among different local unions based on the place of those workers' employment, either along geographical lines or by adopting the boundaries between political jurisdictions.
structures. In fact, scholars have shown the tremendous complexity inherent in explaining the decline of union density.
A broad range of forces have been identified as potential contributors to the drop in union density across countries. Sano and Williamson outline quantitative studies that assess the relevance of these factors across countries. The first relevant set of factors relate to the receptiveness of unions’ institutional environments. For example, the presence of a Ghent system
(where unions are responsible for the distribution of unemployment insurance) and of centralized collective bargaining (organized at a national or industry level as opposed to local or firm level) have both been shown to give unions more bargaining power and to correlate positively to higher rates of union density. Unions have enjoyed higher rates of success in locations where they have greater access to the workplace as an organizing space (as determined both by law and by employer acceptance), and where they benefit from a corporatist relationship to the state and are thus allowed to participate more directly in the official governance structure. Moreover, the fluctuations of business cycles, particularly the rise and fall of unemployment rates and inflation, are also closely linked to changes in union density.
Labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan attributes the drop to the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act
, which greatly reduced the power of unions, to support each other in strikes, made it harder to form new unions, and eventually encouraged employers to attack existing unions.
The relatively coherent scholarly perspective on the role of institutional openness to organized labor in determining union strength is not mirrored in the analysis of political and economic factors. Brady writes that political parties
play an expected role in determining union strength, with left-wing governments generally promoting greater union density, other scholars contest this finding by pointing out important counterexamples and explaining the reverse causality inherent in this relationship.
More recently, as unions have become increasingly concerned with the impacts of market integration on their well-being, scholars have begun to assess whether popular concerns about a global “race to the bottom” are reflected in cross-country comparisons of union strength. These scholars use foreign direct investment
(FDI) and the size of a country’s international trade as a percentage of its GDP to assess a country’s relative degree of market integration. These researchers typically find that globalization
does affect union density, but is dependent on other factors, such as unions’ access to the workplace and the centralization of bargaining. Sano and Williamson argue that globalization’s impact is conditional upon a country’s labor history. In the United States in particular, which has traditionally had relatively low levels of union density, globalization did not appear to significantly affect union density.
Studies focusing more narrowly on the U.S. labor movement corroborate the comparative findings about the importance of structural factors, but tend to emphasize the effects of changing labor markets due to globalization to a greater extent. Bronfenbrenner notes that changes in the economy, such as increased global competition, capital flight
, and the transitions from a manufacturing
to a service economy
and to a greater reliance on transitory and contingent workers, accounts for only a third of the decline in union density. She claims that the federal government in the 1980s was largely responsible for giving employers the perception that they could engage in aggressive strategies to repress the formation of unions. Richard Freeman also points to the role of repressive employer strategies in reducing unionization, and highlights the way in which a state ideology of anti-unionism tacitly accepted these strategies Goldfield notes that the overall effects of globalization on unionization in the particular case of the United States may be understated in econometric studies on the subject. He writes that the threat of production shifts reduces unions’ bargaining power even if it does not eliminate them, and also claims that most of the effects of globalization on labor’s strength are indirect. They are most present in change towards a neoliberal political context that has promoted the deregulation
and privatization
of some industries and accepted increased employer flexibility in labor markets.
However, Mayer has written that it was precisely unions’ opposition to NAFTA overall that jeopardized organized labor’s ability to influence the debate on labor standards in a significant way. During Clinton’s presidential campaign, labor unions wanted NAFTA to include a side deal to provide for a kind of international social charter, a set of standards that would be enforceable both in domestic courts and through international institutions. Kantor, then U.S. trade representative, had strong ties to organized labor and believed that he could get unions to come along with the agreement, particularly if they were given a strong voice in the negotiation process. However, when it became clear that Mexico would not stand for this kind of an agreement, some critics from the labor movement would not settle for any viable alternatives. In response, part of the labor movement wanted to declare their open opposition to the agreement, and to push for NAFTA’s rejection in Congress. Ultimately, the ambivalence of labor groups led those within the Administration who supported NAFTA to believe that strengthening NAFTA’s labor side agreement too much would cost more votes among Republicans than it would garner among Democrats, and would make it harder for the United States to elicit support from Mexico.
Graubart writes that, despite unions’ open disappointment with the outcome of this labor-side negotiation, labor activists, including the AFL-CIO have used the side agreement’s citizen petition process to highlight ongoing political campaigns and struggles in their home countries. He claims that despite the relative weakness of the legal provisions themselves, the side-agreement has served a legitimizing functioning, giving certain social struggles a new kind of standing.
Unions have recently been engaged in a developing field of transnational labor regulation embodied in corporate codes of conduct. However, O’Brien notes that unions have been only peripherally involved in this process, and remain ambivalent about its potential effects. They worry that these codes could have legitimizing effects on companies that don’t actually live up to good practices, and that companies could use codes to excuse or distract attention from the repression of unions. Braun and Gearhart note that although unions do participate in the structure of a number of these agreements, their original interest in codes of conduct differed from the interests of human rights and other non-governmental activists. They believed that codes of conduct would be important first steps in creating written principles that a company would be compelled to comply with in later organizing contracts, but did not foresee the establishment of monitoring systems such as the Fair Labor Association. These authors point out that are motivated by power, want to gain insider status politically and are accountable to a constituency that requires them to provide them with direct benefits. In contrast, activists from the non-governmental sector are motivated by ideals, are free of accountability and gain legitimacy from being political outsiders. Therefore, the interests of unions are not likely to align well with the interests of those who draft and monitor corporate codes of conduct.
Unions have made some attempts to organize across borders. Eder notes that transnational organizing is not a new phenomenon but has been facilitated by technological change. Nevertheless, he claims that while unions pay lip service to global solidarity, they still act largely in their national self-interest. He argues that unions in the global North are becoming increasingly depoliticized while those in the South grow politically, and that global differentiation of production processes leads to divergent strategies and interests in different regions of the world. These structural differences tend to hinder effective global solidarity. However, in light of the weakness of international labor, Herod notes that globalization of production need not be met by a globalization of union strategies in order to be contained. He points out that local strategies, such as the United Auto Workers’ strike against General Motors in 1998, can sometimes effectively interrupt global production processes in ways that they could not before the advent of widespread market integration. Thus, workers need not be connected organizationally to others around the world to effectively influence the behavior of a transnational corporation.
1900–1932
Primary sources
1932 - 1955
Fair Employment FEPC
Taft-Hartley and the NLRA
Public sector
The public sector, sometimes referred to as the state sector, is a part of the state that deals with either the production, delivery and allocation of goods and services by and for the government or its citizens, whether national, regional or local/municipal.Examples of public sector activity range...
employees such as teachers and police. Activity by labor union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
s in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
today centers on collective bargaining
Collective bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions...
over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership and on representing their members if management attempts to violate contract provisions. Although much smaller compared to their peak membership in the 1950s, American unions also remain an important political factor, both through mobilization of their own memberships and through coalitions with like-minded activist organizations around issues such as immigrant rights, trade policy, health care, and living wage
Living wage
In public policy, a living wage is the minimum hourly income necessary for a worker to meet basic needs . These needs include shelter and other incidentals such as clothing and nutrition...
campaigns.
Today most unions are aligned with one of two larger umbrella organizations: the AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
created in 1955 and the Change to Win Federation
Change to Win Federation
The Change to Win Federation is a coalition of American labor unions originally formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO. The coalition is associated with strong advocacy of the organizing model...
, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. Both advocate policies and legislation on behalf of workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics. The AFL-CIO is especially concerned with global trade issues.
In 2010, total labor union density (the percentage of workers—both public and private—belonging to a labor union) was 11.4% in the United States. For comparison, it was 18.6% in Germany, 27.5% in Canada, and 70% in Finland. Union membership in the private sector has in recent years fallen under 9% — levels not seen since 1932. Unions allege that employer-incited opposition has contributed to this decline in membership.
Unions are currently advocating new federal legislation that would allow workers to elect union representation by simply signing a support card. The current process established by federal law requires at least 30% of employees to sign cards for the union, then wait 45 to 90 days for a federal official to conduct a secret ballot election in which a simple majority
Majority
A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members. This can be compared to a plurality, which is a subset larger than any other subset; i.e. a plurality is not necessarily a majority as the largest subset may consist of less than half the group's population...
of the employees must vote for the union in order to obligate the employer to bargain. Unions report that, under the present system, many employers use the 45 to 90 day period to conduct anti-union campaigns. Some opponents of this legislation fear that removing secret balloting from the process will lead to the intimidation and coercion of workers on behalf of the unions. During the 2008 elections, the Employee Free Choice Act
Employee Free Choice Act
The Employee Free Choice Act was a legislative bill that was introduced into both chambers of the U.S. Congress on March 10, 2009. The bill's purpose was to,...
had widespread support of many legislators in the House and Senate, and of the President. Since then, support for the "card check" provisions of the EFCA subsided substantially.
History
Unions began forming in the mid-19th century. The 1870s and 1880s saw large-scale consolidation, with the Knights of LaborKnights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was the largest and one of the most important American labor organizations of the 1880s. Its most important leader was Terence Powderly...
mushrooming overnight into a major force in the late 1880s; it then collapsed because of poor organization. The American Federation of Labor
American Federation of Labor
The American Federation of Labor was one of the first federations of labor unions in the United States. It was founded in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions disaffected from the Knights of Labor, a national labor association. Samuel Gompers was elected president of the Federation at its...
, led until his death in 1924 by Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers
Samuel Gompers was an English-born American cigar maker who became a labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor , and served as that organization's president from 1886 to 1894 and from 1895 until his death in 1924...
, proved much more durable. It was a coalition of many national unions, and helped resolve jurisdictional disputes, created citywide coalitions that helped coordinate strikes, and after 1907 became a player in national politics, usually on the side of the Democrats. The Railroad Brotherhoods
Railroad brotherhoods
The Railroad brotherhoods are labor unions of railroad workers in the United States. They first appeared in 1863 and they are still active. Until recent years they were independent of each other and of the American Federation of Labor.-1863-1920:...
, while separate from the AFL, formed national networks in the late 19th century. Rapid growth came in 1900-1919, but was followed by a long decline until the Wagner Act of 1935 led to an invigoration of the labor movement, which finally became a permanent factor in heavy industry. The CIO
Congress of Industrial Organizations
The Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO, proposed by John L. Lewis in 1932, was a federation of unions that organized workers in industrial unions in the United States and Canada from 1935 to 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 required union leaders to swear that they were not...
under John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
split off and competed aggressively for membership. The AFL was always larger and both federations grew enormously during World War II. After the Communists in the CIO were purged in 1946-1948, a merger into the AFL-CIO became possible in 1955. The Taft-Hartley Act
Taft-Hartley Act
The Labor–Management Relations Act is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S...
of 1947 was a conservative measure that weakened the unions, and highly publicized reports of corruption in the Teamsters
Teamsters
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of several local and regional locals of teamsters, the union now represents a diverse membership of blue-collar and professional workers in both the public and private sectors....
and other unions hurt the image of the labor movement during the 1950s. Unions formed a backbone element of the New Deal Coalition
New Deal coalition
The New Deal Coalition was the alignment of interest groups and voting blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until the late 1960s. It made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952...
and of Modern liberalism in the United States. Membership and power crested around 1970. Private sector union membership then began a steady decline that continues into the 2010s, but the membership of public sector unions grew steadily.
Labor unions today
Today most labor unions in the United States are members of one of two larger umbrella organizations: the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial OrganizationsAFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
(AFL-CIO) or the Change to Win Federation
Change to Win Federation
The Change to Win Federation is a coalition of American labor unions originally formed in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO. The coalition is associated with strong advocacy of the organizing model...
, which split from the AFL-CIO in 2005-2006. Both organizations advocate policies and legislation favorable to workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics favoring the Democratic party but not exclusively so. The AFL-CIO
AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL–CIO, is a national trade union center, the largest federation of unions in the United States, made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 11 million workers...
is especially concerned with global trade and economical issues.
Recently unions have become a larger issue within the 2008 "Economic Crisis" with the three largest automakers seeking $50 billion in loans in order to stay viable. According to some Senators 'costly labor agreements' including pension and health plans put the U.S. automakers at a disadvantage to foreign companies resulting in their collapse. Others point out that the United Auto Workers has made extensive concessions to the car companies over the last twenty years in order to help the companies remain competitive, and allege that the automakers' recent troubles are better ascribed to other factors.
Private sector union members are tightly regulated by the National Labor Relations Act
National Labor Relations Act
The National Labor Relations Act or Wagner Act , is a 1935 United States federal law that limits the means with which employers may react to workers in the private sector who create labor unions , engage in collective bargaining, and take part in strikes and other forms of concerted activity in...
(NLRA), passed in 1935. The law is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board is an independent agency of the United States government charged with conducting elections for labor union representation and with investigating and remedying unfair labor practices. Unfair labor practices may involve union-related situations or instances of...
(NLRB), an independent federal agency
Independent agencies of the United States government
Independent agencies of the United States federal government are those agencies that exist outside of the federal executive departments...
. Public sector unions are regulated partly by federal and partly by state laws. In general they have shown robust growth rates, for wages and working conditions are set through negotiations with elected local and state officials. The unions' political power thus comes into play, and of course the local government cannot threaten to move elsewhere, nor is there any threat from foreign competition.
To join a traditional labor union, workers must either be given voluntary recognition from their employer or have a majority of workers in a bargaining unit vote for union representation. In either case, the government must then certify the newly formed union. Other forms of unionism include minority unionism, Solidarity unionism
Solidarity unionism
Solidarity unionism is a model of labour organizing in which the workers themselves formulate strategy and take action against the company directly without mediation from government or paid union representatives. It is a key pillar of anarcho-syndicalism...
, and the practices of organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
, which do not always follow traditional organizational models.
Public sector worker unions are governed by labor laws and labor boards in each of the 50 states. Northern states typically model their laws and boards after the NLRA and the NLRB. In other states, public workers have no right to establish a union as a legal entity. (About 40% of public employees in the USA do not have the right to organize a legally established union.)
Once the union has won the support of a majority of the bargaining unit and is certified in a workplace, it has the sole authority to negotiate the conditions of employment. However, under the NLRA, if a minority of employees voted for a union, those employees can then form a union which represents the rights of only those members who voted for the union. This minority model was once widely used, but was discarded when unions began to consistently win majority support. Unions are beginning to revisit the "members only" model of unionism because of new changes to labor law which unions view as curbing workers' ability to organize.
The employer and the union write the terms and conditions of employment in a legally binding contract. When disputes arise over the contract, most contracts call for the parties to resolve their differences through a grievance process to see if the dispute can be mutually resolved. If the union and the employer still cannot settle the matter, either party can choose to send the dispute to arbitration
Arbitration
Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution , is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, where the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons , by whose decision they agree to be bound...
, where the case is argued before a neutral third party.
In the 1940s and 1950s, links to organized crime were discovered in U.S. unions, hurting their image. Since the 1970s, union membership has been steadily declining in the private sector while growing in the public sector. Right-to-work statutes
Right-to-work law
Right-to-work laws are statutes enforced in twenty-two U.S. states, mostly in the southern or western U.S., allowed under provisions of the federal Taft–Hartley Act, which prohibit agreements between labor unions and employers that make membership, payment of union dues, or fees a condition of...
forbid unions from negotiating agency shop
Agency shop
An agency shop is a form of union security agreement where the employer may hire union or non-union workers, and employees need not join the union in order to remain employed. However, the non-union worker must pay a fee to cover collective bargaining costs...
s. Thus, while unions do exist in "right-to-work" states, they are typically weaker.
Members of labor unions enjoy "Weingarten Rights
Weingarten Rights
In 1975 the United States Supreme Court, in the case of NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., , upheld a National Labor Relations Board decision that employees have a right to union representation at investigatory interviews...
." If management questions the union member on a matter that may lead to discipline or other changes in working conditions, union members can request representation by a union representative. Weingarten Rights
Weingarten Rights
In 1975 the United States Supreme Court, in the case of NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., , upheld a National Labor Relations Board decision that employees have a right to union representation at investigatory interviews...
are named for the first Supreme Court decision to recognize those rights.
The NLRA goes farther in protecting the right of workers to organize unions. It protects the right of workers to engage in any "concerted activity" for mutual aid or protection. Thus, no union connection is needed. Concerted activity "in its inception involves only a speaker and a listener, for such activity is an indispensable preliminary step to employee self-organization."
Membership
Union membership had been steadily declining in the US since 1983. In 2007, the labor department reported the first increase in union memberships in 25 years and the largest increase since 1979. Most of the recent gains in union membership have been in the service sector while the number of unionized employees in the manufacturing sector has declined. Most of the gains in the service sector have come in West Coast states like California where union membership is now at 16.7% compared with a national average of about 12.1%.Union density (the percentage of workers belonging to unions) has been declining since the late 1940s, however. Almost 36% of American workers were represented by unions in 1945. Historically, the rapid growth of public employee unions since the 1960s has served to mask an even more dramatic decline in private-sector union membership.
At the apex of union density in the 1940s, only about 9.8% of public employees were represented by unions, while 33.9% of private, non-agricultural workers had such representation. In this decade, those proportions have essentially reversed, with 36% of public workers being represented by unions while private sector union density had plummeted to around 7%. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent survey indicates that union membership in the US has risen to 12.4% of all workers, from 12.1% in 2007. For a short period, private sector union membership rebounded, increasing from 7.5% in 2007 to 7.6% in 2008. However, that trend has since reversed. In 2009, the union density for private sector stood at 7.2%.
Labor education programs
In the US, labor education programs such as the Harvard Trade Union Program created in 1942 by Harvard University professor John Thomas DunlopJohn Thomas Dunlop
John Thomas Dunlop was a U.S. administrator and labor scholar.He was the Secretary of Labor between 1975 and 1976. He was also Director of the U.S. Cost of Living Council from 1973–1974, Chairman of the U.S.Commission on the Future of Worker/Management Relations from 1993–1995 and arbitrator and...
sought to educate union members to deal with important contemporary workplace and labor law issues of the day. The Harvard Trade Union Program is currently part of a broader initiative at Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
called the Labor and Worklife Program that deals with a wide variety of labor and employment issues from union pension investment funds to the effects of nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
on labor markets and the workplace.
Jurisdiction
Labor unionsTrade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
use the term jurisdiction to refer to their claims to represent workers who perform a certain type of work and the right of their members to perform such work. For example, the work of unloading containerized cargo at United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ports, which the International Longshoremen's Association
International Longshoremen's Association
The International Longshoremen's Association is a labor union representing longshore workers along the East Coast of the United States and Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and inland waterways...
the International Longshore and Warehouse Union
International Longshore and Warehouse Union
The International Longshore and Warehouse Union is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii and Alaska, and in British Columbia, Canada. It also represents hotel workers in Hawaii, cannery workers in Alaska, warehouse workers throughout...
and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have claimed rightfully should be assigned to workers they represent. A jurisdictional strike
Jurisdictional strike
Labor unions use the term jurisdiction to refer to their claims to represent workers who perform a certain type of work and the right of their members to perform such work...
is a concerted refusal to work undertaken by a union to assert its members' right to such job assignments and to protest the assignment of disputed work to members of another union or to unorganized workers. Jurisdictional strikes occur most frequently in the United States in the construction industry.
Unions also use jurisdiction to refer to the geographical boundaries of their operations, as in those cases in which a national or international union allocates the right to represent workers among different local unions based on the place of those workers' employment, either along geographical lines or by adopting the boundaries between political jurisdictions.
Possible causes of drop in union density
Although most industrialized countries have seen a drop in unionization rates, the drop in union density (the unionized proportion of the working population) has been more significant in the United States than elsewhere. Popular explanations that pin this decline to a reduced popularity of unionization among workers and the general public appear to be misguided. Public approval of unions climbed between 1981 and 1988, with 61% of Americans approving of unions in 1988. The rate of public confidence in the United States during this same time differed little from the analogous rate in other industrialized nations. Dropping unionization rates cannot be attributed entirely to changing marketMarket
A market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
structures. In fact, scholars have shown the tremendous complexity inherent in explaining the decline of union density.
A broad range of forces have been identified as potential contributors to the drop in union density across countries. Sano and Williamson outline quantitative studies that assess the relevance of these factors across countries. The first relevant set of factors relate to the receptiveness of unions’ institutional environments. For example, the presence of a Ghent system
Ghent system
The Ghent system is the name given to an arrangement in some countries whereby the main responsibility for welfare payments, especially unemployment benefits, is held by trade/labor unions, rather than a government agency....
(where unions are responsible for the distribution of unemployment insurance) and of centralized collective bargaining (organized at a national or industry level as opposed to local or firm level) have both been shown to give unions more bargaining power and to correlate positively to higher rates of union density. Unions have enjoyed higher rates of success in locations where they have greater access to the workplace as an organizing space (as determined both by law and by employer acceptance), and where they benefit from a corporatist relationship to the state and are thus allowed to participate more directly in the official governance structure. Moreover, the fluctuations of business cycles, particularly the rise and fall of unemployment rates and inflation, are also closely linked to changes in union density.
Labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan attributes the drop to the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act
Taft-Hartley Act
The Labor–Management Relations Act is a United States federal law that monitors the activities and power of labor unions. The act, still effective, was sponsored by Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred A. Hartley, Jr. and became law by overriding U.S. President Harry S...
, which greatly reduced the power of unions, to support each other in strikes, made it harder to form new unions, and eventually encouraged employers to attack existing unions.
The relatively coherent scholarly perspective on the role of institutional openness to organized labor in determining union strength is not mirrored in the analysis of political and economic factors. Brady writes that political parties
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
play an expected role in determining union strength, with left-wing governments generally promoting greater union density, other scholars contest this finding by pointing out important counterexamples and explaining the reverse causality inherent in this relationship.
More recently, as unions have become increasingly concerned with the impacts of market integration on their well-being, scholars have begun to assess whether popular concerns about a global “race to the bottom” are reflected in cross-country comparisons of union strength. These scholars use foreign direct investment
Foreign direct investment
Foreign direct investment or foreign investment refers to the net inflows of investment to acquire a lasting management interest in an enterprise operating in an economy other than that of the investor.. It is the sum of equity capital,other long-term capital, and short-term capital as shown in...
(FDI) and the size of a country’s international trade as a percentage of its GDP to assess a country’s relative degree of market integration. These researchers typically find that globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
does affect union density, but is dependent on other factors, such as unions’ access to the workplace and the centralization of bargaining. Sano and Williamson argue that globalization’s impact is conditional upon a country’s labor history. In the United States in particular, which has traditionally had relatively low levels of union density, globalization did not appear to significantly affect union density.
Studies focusing more narrowly on the U.S. labor movement corroborate the comparative findings about the importance of structural factors, but tend to emphasize the effects of changing labor markets due to globalization to a greater extent. Bronfenbrenner notes that changes in the economy, such as increased global competition, capital flight
Capital flight
Capital flight, in economics, occurs when assets and/or money rapidly flow out of a country, due to an economic event and that disturbs investors and causes them to lower their valuation of the assets in that country, or otherwise to lose confidence in its economic...
, and the transitions from a manufacturing
Manufacturing
Manufacturing is the use of machines, tools and labor to produce goods for use or sale. The term may refer to a range of human activity, from handicraft to high tech, but is most commonly applied to industrial production, in which raw materials are transformed into finished goods on a large scale...
to a service economy
Service economy
Service economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments. One is the increased importance of the service sector in industrialized economies. Services account for a higher percentage of US GDP than 20 years ago...
and to a greater reliance on transitory and contingent workers, accounts for only a third of the decline in union density. She claims that the federal government in the 1980s was largely responsible for giving employers the perception that they could engage in aggressive strategies to repress the formation of unions. Richard Freeman also points to the role of repressive employer strategies in reducing unionization, and highlights the way in which a state ideology of anti-unionism tacitly accepted these strategies Goldfield notes that the overall effects of globalization on unionization in the particular case of the United States may be understated in econometric studies on the subject. He writes that the threat of production shifts reduces unions’ bargaining power even if it does not eliminate them, and also claims that most of the effects of globalization on labor’s strength are indirect. They are most present in change towards a neoliberal political context that has promoted the deregulation
Deregulation
Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or...
and privatization
Privatization
Privatization is the incidence or process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency or public service from the public sector to the private sector or to private non-profit organizations...
of some industries and accepted increased employer flexibility in labor markets.
Union responses to globalization
Regardless of the actual impact of market integration on union density or on workers themselves, organized labor has been engaged in a variety of strategies to limit the agenda of globalization and to promote labor regulations in an international context. The most prominent example of this has been the opposition of labor groups to free trade initiatives such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). In both cases, unions expressed strong opposition to the agreements, but to some extent pushed for the incorporation of basic labor standards in the agreement if one were to pass.However, Mayer has written that it was precisely unions’ opposition to NAFTA overall that jeopardized organized labor’s ability to influence the debate on labor standards in a significant way. During Clinton’s presidential campaign, labor unions wanted NAFTA to include a side deal to provide for a kind of international social charter, a set of standards that would be enforceable both in domestic courts and through international institutions. Kantor, then U.S. trade representative, had strong ties to organized labor and believed that he could get unions to come along with the agreement, particularly if they were given a strong voice in the negotiation process. However, when it became clear that Mexico would not stand for this kind of an agreement, some critics from the labor movement would not settle for any viable alternatives. In response, part of the labor movement wanted to declare their open opposition to the agreement, and to push for NAFTA’s rejection in Congress. Ultimately, the ambivalence of labor groups led those within the Administration who supported NAFTA to believe that strengthening NAFTA’s labor side agreement too much would cost more votes among Republicans than it would garner among Democrats, and would make it harder for the United States to elicit support from Mexico.
Graubart writes that, despite unions’ open disappointment with the outcome of this labor-side negotiation, labor activists, including the AFL-CIO have used the side agreement’s citizen petition process to highlight ongoing political campaigns and struggles in their home countries. He claims that despite the relative weakness of the legal provisions themselves, the side-agreement has served a legitimizing functioning, giving certain social struggles a new kind of standing.
Unions have recently been engaged in a developing field of transnational labor regulation embodied in corporate codes of conduct. However, O’Brien notes that unions have been only peripherally involved in this process, and remain ambivalent about its potential effects. They worry that these codes could have legitimizing effects on companies that don’t actually live up to good practices, and that companies could use codes to excuse or distract attention from the repression of unions. Braun and Gearhart note that although unions do participate in the structure of a number of these agreements, their original interest in codes of conduct differed from the interests of human rights and other non-governmental activists. They believed that codes of conduct would be important first steps in creating written principles that a company would be compelled to comply with in later organizing contracts, but did not foresee the establishment of monitoring systems such as the Fair Labor Association. These authors point out that are motivated by power, want to gain insider status politically and are accountable to a constituency that requires them to provide them with direct benefits. In contrast, activists from the non-governmental sector are motivated by ideals, are free of accountability and gain legitimacy from being political outsiders. Therefore, the interests of unions are not likely to align well with the interests of those who draft and monitor corporate codes of conduct.
Unions have made some attempts to organize across borders. Eder notes that transnational organizing is not a new phenomenon but has been facilitated by technological change. Nevertheless, he claims that while unions pay lip service to global solidarity, they still act largely in their national self-interest. He argues that unions in the global North are becoming increasingly depoliticized while those in the South grow politically, and that global differentiation of production processes leads to divergent strategies and interests in different regions of the world. These structural differences tend to hinder effective global solidarity. However, in light of the weakness of international labor, Herod notes that globalization of production need not be met by a globalization of union strategies in order to be contained. He points out that local strategies, such as the United Auto Workers’ strike against General Motors in 1998, can sometimes effectively interrupt global production processes in ways that they could not before the advent of widespread market integration. Thus, workers need not be connected organizationally to others around the world to effectively influence the behavior of a transnational corporation.
See also
- Commission on Industrial RelationsCommission on Industrial RelationsThe Commission on Industrial Relations was a commission created by the U.S. Congress on August 23, 1912. The commission studied work conditions throughout the industrial United States between 1913 and 1915...
- Industrial Workers of the WorldIndustrial Workers of the WorldThe Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...
- International comparisons of labor unionsInternational comparisons of labor unionsUnions have been compared across countries by growth and decline patterns, by violence levels, and by kinds of political activity.-Union growth and decline comparisons:...
- Labor federation competition in the U.S.Labor federation competition in the U.S.A labor federation is a group of unions or labor organizations that are in some sense coordinated. The terminology used to identify such organizations grows out of usage, and has sometimes been imprecise. For example, nationals are sometimes named internationals, federations are named unions,...
- Labor history of the United StatesLabor history of the United StatesThe labor history of the United States describes the history of organized labor, as well as the more general history of working people, in the United States. Pressures dictating the nature and power of organized labor have included the evolution and power of the corporation, efforts by employers...
- List of strikes
- Opposition to trade unionsOpposition to trade unionsOpposition to trade unions comes from a variety of groups in society, and there are many different types of argument on which this opposition is based.-Strategic strikes and social disruption:...
- Timeline of labor unions in the United States
- Union affiliation by U.S. state
Surveys
- Arnesen, Eric, ed. Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History (2006), 2064pp; 650 articles by experts excerpt and text search
- Beard, Mary Ritter. A Short History of the American Labor Movement 1920 - 176 pages online edition
- Beik, Millie, ed. Labor Relations: Major Issues in American History (2005) over 100 annotated primary documents excerpt and text search
- Boris, Eileen, and Nelson Lichtenstein, eds. Major Problems In The History Of American Workers: Documents and Essays (2002)
- Brody, David. In Labor's Cause: Main Themes on the History of the American Worker (1993) excerpt and text search
- Browne, Waldo Ralph. What's what in the Labor Movement: A Dictionary of Labor Affairs and Labor (1921) 577pp; encyclopedia of labor terms, organizations and history. complete text online
- Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Foster Rhea Dulles. Labor in America: A History (2004), textbook, based on earlier textbooks by Dulles.
- Dubofsky, Melvyn, and Warren Van Tine, eds. Labor Leaders in America (1987) biographies of key leaders, written by scholars excerpt and text search
- LeBlanc, Paul. A Short History of the U.S. Working Class: From Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century (1999), 160pp excerpt and text search
- Lichtenstein, Nelson. State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (2003) excerpt and text search
- Perlman, Selig. A History of Trade Unionism in the United States 1922 - 313 pages online edition
- Taylor, Paul F. The ABC-CLIO Companion to the American Labor Movement (1993) 237pp; short encyclopedia
- Zieger, Robert H., and Gilbert J. Gall, American Workers, American Unions: The Twentieth Century(3rd ed. 2002) excerpt and text search
- Zieger, Robert H. For Jobs and Freedom: Race and Labor in America Since 1865 (2007) excerpt and text search
To 1900
- Commons, John R. History of Labour in the United States - vol 1 and Vol. 2 1860-1896 (1918) vol 2 online edition (note spelling of "Labour")
- Commons, John R. "American Shoemakers, 1648-1895: A Sketch of Industrial Evolution," Quarterly Journal of Economics 24 (November, 1909), 39-83. in JSTOR
- Commons, John R. ed. Trade Unionism and Labor Problems (1905) articles by experts on unions and working condition online edition
- Grob, Gerald N. Workers and Utopia: A Study of Ideological Conflict in the American Labor Movement, 1865-1900 (1961) online edition
- Hall, John P. "The Knights of St. Crispin in Massachusetts, 1869-1878," Journal of Economic History 18 (June, 1958), p 161-175 in JSTOR
- Laslett, John H. M. Labor and the Left: A Study of Socialist and Radical Influences in the American Labor Movement, 1881-1924 (1970) online edition
- Mandel, Bernard. Samuel Gompers: A Biography (1963) online edition
- Orth, Samuel P. The Armies of Labor: A Chronicle of the Organized Wage-Earners (1919) short popular overview online edition
- Taillon, Paul Michel. Good, Reliable, White Men: Railroad Brotherhoods, 1877-1917 (2009)
- Taft, Philip Taft and Philip Ross, "American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome," in The History of Violence in America: A Report to the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, ed. Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, 1969. online edition
- Van Tine, Warren R. The Making of the Labor Bureaucrat: Union Leadership in the United States, 1870-1920 (1973) online edition
- Voss, Kim. The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labor and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century (1993) online edition
- Weir, Robert E. Beyond Labor's Veil: The Culture of the Knights of Labor (1996) online edition
- Bibliography of online resources on railway labor in late 19th century
1900–1932
- Bernstein, Irving. The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-33 (1966)
- Brody, David. Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919 (1965)
- Dubofsky, Melvyn and Warren Van Tine. John L. Lewis: A Biography (1986)
- Brody, David. Labor in Crisis: The Steel Strike of 1919 (1965)
- Faue, Elizabeth. Community of Suffering & Struggle: Women, Men, and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945 (1991)
- Fraser, Steve. Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor (1993)
- Gordon, Colin. New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics, 1920-1935 (1994)
- Greene, Julie . Pure and Simple Politics: The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 1881-1917 (1998)
- Hooker, Clarence. Life in the Shadows of the Crystal Palace, 1910-1927: Ford Workers in the Model T Era (1997)
- Laslett, John H. M. Labor and the Left: A Study of Socialist and Radical Influences in the American Labor Movement, 1881-1924 (1970)
- Karson, Marc. American Labor Unions and Politics, 1900-1918 (1958)
- McCartin, Joseph A. ’Labor's Great War: The Struggle for Industrial Democracy and the Origins of Modern American Labor Relations, 1912-1921 (1997)
- Mandel, Bernard. Samuel Gompers: A Biography (1963)
- Meyer, Stephen. The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908-1921 (1981)
- Mink, Gwendolyn. Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875-1920 (1986)
- Orth, Samuel P. The Armies of Labor: A Chronicle of the Organized Wage-Earners (1919) short overview
- Quint, Howard H. The Forging of American Socialism: Origins of the Modern Movement (1964)
- Warne, Colston E. ed. The Steel Strike of 1919 (1963), primary and secondary documents
- Zieger, Robert. Republicans and Labor, 1919-1929. (1969)
Primary sources
- Gompers, Samuel. Seventy Years of Life and Labor: An Autobiography (1925)
1932 - 1955
- Bernstein, Irving. Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941 (1970)
- Boyle, Kevin. The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968 (1995)
- Campbell, D'Ann. "Sisterhood versus the Brotherhoods: Women in Unions" Women at War With America: Private Lives in a Patriotic Era (1984).
- Dubofsky, Melvyn and Warren Van Time John L. Lewis (1986).
- Faue, Elizabeth. Community of Suffering & Struggle: Women, Men, and the Labor Movement in Minneapolis, 1915-1945 (1991), social history
- Fraser, Steve. Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor (1993).
- Galenson, Walter. The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement, 1935-1941 (1960)
- Gordon, Colin. New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics, 1920-1935 (1994)
- Jensen, Richard J. "The Causes and Cures of Unemployment in the Great Depression," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 19 (1989) p. 553-83
- Kennedy, David M. Freedom From Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. (1999) recent narrative.
- Lichtenstein, Nelson. Labor's War at Home: The CIO in World War II (2003)
- Lichtenstein, Nelson. The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor (1995)
- Miller, Sally M., and Daniel A. Cornford eds. American Labor in the Era of World War II (1995), essays by historians, mostly on California
- Preis, Art. Labor's Giant Step (1964)
- Seidman; Joel. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen: The Internal Political Life of a National Union (1962)
- Vittoz, Stanley. New Deal Labor Policy and the American Industrial Economy (1987)
- Zieger, Robert H. The CIO, 1935-1955 (1995)
Fair Employment FEPC
- William J. Collins, "Race, Roosevelt, and Wartime Production: Fair Employment in World War II Labor Markets," American Economic Review 91:1 (March 2001), pp. 272–286
- Andrew Edmund Kersten, Race, Jobs, and the War: The FEPC in the Midwest, 1941-46 (2000) online review
- Merl E. Reed. Seedtime for the Modern Civil Rights Movement: The President's Committee on Fair Employment Practice, 1941-1946 (1991)
Taft-Hartley and the NLRA
- Abraham, Steven E. "The Impact of the Taft-Hartley Act on the Balance of Power in Industrial Relations" American Business Law Journal Vol. 33, 1996
- Ballam, Deborah A. "The Impact of the National Labor Relations Act on the U.S. Labor Movement" American Business Law Journal, Vol. 32, 1995
- Brooks, George W., Milton Derber, David A. McCabe, Philip Taft. Interpreting the Labor Movement (1952)
- Gall, Gilbert J. The Politics of Right to Work: The Labor Federations as Special Interests, 1943-1979 (1988)
- Hartley Jr. Fred A., and Robert A. Taft. Our New National Labor Policy: The Taft-Hartley Act and the Next Steps (1948)
- Lee, R. Alton. Truman and Taft-Hartley: A Question of Mandate (1966)
- Millis, Harry A., and Emily Clark Brown. From the Wagner Act to Taft-Hartley: A Study of National Labor Policy and Labor Relations (1950)
Primary sources
- Christman, Henry M. ed. Walter P. Reuther: Selected Papers (1961)
1955–2009
- Bennett, James T., and Bruce E. Kaufman. What do unions do?: a twenty-year perspective (2007)
- Dark; Taylor E. The Unions and the Democrats: An Enduring Alliance (1999)
- Dine, Philip. State of the Unions: How Labor Can Strengthen the Middle Class, Improve Our Economy, and Regain Political Influence (2007)
- Fantasia, Rick, and Kim Voss. Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement (2004)
- Galenson, Walter; The American Labor Movement, 1955-1995 (1996)
- Goldberg, Arthur J. AFL-CIO, Labor United (1956)
- Leiter, Robert D. The Teamsters Union: A Study of Its Economic Impact (1957)
- Lipset, Seymour Martin, ed. Unions in Transition: Entering the Second Century (1986)
- Mort, Jo-Ann, ed. Not Your Father's Union Movement: Inside the AFL-CIO" (2002)
- Yates, Michael D. Why Unions Matter (2009)