Recently in Future of Unions Category

Source: John Buntin, Governing, March 2010

Critics say it's time for cities and states to get tough with public-sector unions. They may be right -- for all the wrong reasons.

Source: Roger Bybee, In These Times, January 26, 2010

The anti-union carpet-bombing is incessant, almost universal in the private sector with management fully exploiting its unilateral access to workers on the job. Further, the anti-union war is now accelerating against public-sector as well, observed sociologist Stanley Aronowitz, former union organizer who has written extensively on labor.

Corporations have been actively trying to influence not just their workers, but their investors and the general public as well, against unions. Michaels Stores, the arts and crafts supply chain, is trying to mobilize its stockholders, portraying worker's right to organize as a threat to the company.

Source: Peter Coy, Michelle Conlin and Moira Herbst, Business Week, no. 4163, January 18, 2009

Pay is falling, benefits are vanishing, and no one's job is secure. How companies are making the era of the temp more than temporary.

...You know American workers are in bad shape when a low-paying, no-benefits job is considered a sweet deal. Their situation isn't likely to improve soon; some economists predict it will be years, not months, before employees regain any semblance of bargaining power. That's because this recession's unusual ferocity has accelerated trends--including offshoring, automation, the decline of labor unions' influence, new management techniques, and regulatory changes--that already had been eroding workers' economic standing.

Source: Steve Early, WorkingUSA, Vol. 12 no. 4, December 2009
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From the abstract:
The terrain of "progressive labor" in the U.S. has shifted dramatically in recent years. The two million-member Service Employees International Union--long associated with the remaking of labor as a force for social justice--has become embroiled in a series of controversies that have alienated past campus, community, and political allies. A union that once commanded almost automatic support in left-liberal academic circles now finds many "friends of labor" arrayed against it, rhetorically at least, and in some cases, actively assisting organizational rivals such as UNITE HERE and the new National Union of Healthcare Workers. The following article examines the recent history of the labor-intellectual alliance that emerged in the mid-1990s, in response to changes in the national American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) leadership. It assesses the current state of relations between labor-oriented academics and key unions associated with the Change To Win coalition that split from the AFL-CIO in 2005.

Source: Mischa Gaus, Labor Notes, no. 369, December 2009
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A national "superunion" bringing together 150,000 bedside nurses looks all but certain to form in December. Fights inside two of the three unions that are coming together make it clear that how unions make major decisions sometimes matters to members as much as the end product.

Source: Catherine Rampell, New York Times Economix Blog, November 5, 2009

We've written before about the declining influence (and popularity) of trade unions in the United States. How are they faring elsewhere in the developed world?

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development today released updated numbers on what percentage of employees in each member country belong to a trade union.

Source: Sam Estreicher, St. Louis University Law Review, 2009

From a summary:
We are now beginning to see a qualitative change in labor's relationship to the state: trade unionism as a supplement to politics. Labor's economic objectives have not changed; the means are undergoing change. The thesis of this paper is that largely in response to the deepening of competitive forces in private markets in the U.S. - from deregulation, changing technology and the opening up of global labor and product markets (due to decreasing transportation and communication costs and the lowering of trade barriers) -- organized labor increasingly will function predominantly as a political organization. Collective bargaining will continue to provide an institutional raison d'etre and critical funding source for unions but only one (and a diminishing one) of several means for advancing the interests of its members and other constituencies. This is not to suggest the emergence of a labor party on the European model; it is an American variant: the fortunes of the labor movement will become ever more tightly tied to the fortunes of the Democratic Party and economic goals increasingly will be achieved not at the bargaining table but through the provision of public resources.

Source: Mark Brenner, Labor Notes, no. 367, October 2009

Nobody wants to admit it, but the next casualty of the Wall Street meltdown will probably be your golden years. For years corporations have been trying to choke the life out of traditional pensions, working hard to get out from under the risk--and the cost--of providing for their retirees. Between last year's credit crunch and changes to federal pension laws, they may get their wish.
See also:
- Defined-Benefits Squeeze
Source: Labor Notes, no. 367, October 2009
- State and City Pensions Drenched in Red
Source: Labor Notes, no. 367, October 2009

Source: Michael J. Zimmer, Loyola University Chicago International Law Review Paper No. 2009-0015, September 25, 2009

From the abstract:
With increased economic globalization since the 1980s has come increased economic inequality and a decline in union density in most countries of the world, with one notable exception being the Peoples Republic of China. The decline in unionism contributes to increased inequality. This paper will try to begin to answer the question whether a revived unionism operating transnationally can do to help reduce inequality as it did during the industrial era following World War II. To do that, this paper will compare and contrast the union movements in China, Mexico and the U.S. Part I will set out the contours of the problems the union movement faces because many employers have been able to organize themselves to escape national labor laws and national labor unions. Unions, in these three countries as well as elsewhere, have not escaped the trap set up by the Westphalian-based system of sovereign nation states which use national law to regulate national economies. Part II will sketch out some of the ways the union movement might attempt to respond to the present situation, as well as some of the obstacles such action will need to overcome if the union movement is to escape the Westphalian trap. Part III concludes.

Source: Lauren D. Appelbaum, Ben Zipperer, UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, September 2009

Unionization patterns in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and in California are similar in many respects to those in the United States as whole. At the same time, however, the labor movement in the nation's most populous state and in that state's largest metropolis has some distinctive features. Most important among these differences is the trend in overall levels of unionization since the mid-1990s. The unionization rate in the United States declined steadily for several decades and is now only showing slight increases. However, it has been relatively stable or even increasing in Los Angeles and California. The last three years have seen significant increases in unionization rates in both California and Los Angeles. This reflects the region's unusual labor history and its relatively high public-sector unionization rate, as well as the fact that manufacturing (the sector in which unionization has declined most sharply nationally) has historically been less important in the region's economy than was the case in other parts of the nation. For detailed analysis of the distinctive features of L.A. and California labor, see Ruth Milkman and Daisy Rooks, "California Union Membership: A Turn-of-the-Century Portrait," The State of California Labor 2003, and Ruth Milkman, L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006). Finally, government, health and education are the only industries in which there have been increases in jobs during the economic downturn of the last 20 months. The loss of so many private sector jobs may have contributed to the relative increase in unionized workers, since public sector jobs have higher rates of unionization than does private sector employment.