Organized Labor in the 1980s

Report Outline
State of Unions
Labor Law Changes
Union Prospects
Special Focus

State of Unions

Labor Relations Act After Half a Century

Half a century has passed since American labor unions won passage of the “workers' bill of rights.” The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 was the centerpiece of New Deal legislation designed to protect workers' rights to join and be represented by unions. But as the 50th anniversary of the law's passage approaches, unions have little cause for celebration. The strength of the labor movement, as measured by overall union membership, has waned appreciably in recent years. Fewer than one in five workers now belongs to a union, compared with nearly one-third of all workers in the mid-1950s. More alarming to supporters of the labor movement, the giant American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations—AFL-CIO—under the leadership of President Lane Kirkland has not kept up with the rapidly changing economic conditions of the country that are the principal cause of unions' weakness today.

Organized labor based its membership foundation on blue-collar workers concentrated in the established industrial workplaces of the 1930s: auto factories, steel mills, coal mines, railroads. But after World War II, and especially in recent years, the American economy has faced increasing competition in these sectors first from the revived economies of war-torn Western Europe and later from the developing economies of East Asia. Lower labor costs in these regions allowed foreign producers to compete successfully on both the world and American markets. American workers in highly unionized industries found that their relatively high wages and employee benefits won by their union representatives through collective bargaining carried a high price. Employers began transferring their production facilities overseas or to areas of this country, notably the South, where unions had not penetrated. With the flight of the traditional “smokestack” industries where unions had made their greatest gains in membership, union membership dropped.

As employment fell in the more heavily unionized sectors of the economy, many new jobs began opening up in others, notably service industries. But the service sector has never been as amenable to union organizing as the manufacturing, transportation and mining industries, and the labor movement has been unable to organize service workers as quickly as union jobs have disappeared in the industrial sector.