Labor

After the 1955 merger of America’s two largest labor unions, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), organized labor’s power was solidified. In the 1960s it called itself the “people’s lobby,” and lobbied for social causes like the Civil Rights Act and minimum wage and local labor laws. In 1970 its reach was still wide, with 25.7 percent of American workers belonging to a union. But by 1980, only 23 percent belonged to unions; in 1990, membership had dropped to 16.1 percent; in 2000, it was 13.5 percent. Forces behind this decline are complex, and involve many disparate elements, including technological advances that reduce need for employees, corporate relocation, the rise of a largely nonunionized service economy; and questions about the purpose of unions in a postindustrial global economy. How organized labor addresses these concerns will determine its role in the 21st century.

During the 1970s, internal upheaval and external social and government actions combined to erode organized labor’s influence for the rest of the century. In 1970 came the death of Walter Reuther, the highly regarded, moderate, and powerful leader of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and head of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Reuther was replaced by his partner in the union of the AFL and CIO, George Meany, a more inflammatory presence who mirrored the decade in labor relations.

During the early 1970s, many unions voiced protest through militancy and wildcat strikes: in 1974 alone there were 424 work stoppages, involving 1.8 million workers. Accounting for some strikes were public-sector union employees, whose rights were broadened in the 1960s by federal and local laws, and whose union representation tripled to 39 percent between 1960 and 1976. One public-sector strike, the 15-statewide U. S. postal carriers strike in 1970, was the largest wildcat strike in U. S. history and resulted in 14 percent wage increases. Large-scale private-sector walkouts were held at General Motors and General Electric, among other companies.

While some strikes, such as the mail carriers’ strike, were supported by the public, nonunion members came to view the increasing number of strikes as a reflection of union self-interest. This public mistrust was exacerbated by the high life and salaries of top union leaders and the high-profile criminal investigation of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa.

At the same time, many union workers viewed George Meany’s leadership as outdated. Meany supporters disagreed, causing widespread labor unrest. This dissent would help to weaken the union-supported Democratic Party, resulting in party defections and the 1968 election of Republican Richard M. Nixon. Upon Meany’s death in 1979, Lane Kirkland was named head of the AFL-CIO. In the 1980s Kirkland took a diplomatic approach to mending fences within organized labor and countering antiunion forces.

One such force was the decreasing number of union-represented jobs. While major service industries and public-sector professions such as transportation workers, teachers, and the police were highly unionized, older sources of membership declined. Among them were construction, manufacturing, and mining trades, some of which were already facing downsizing through the introduction of labor-saving robots. Particularly on assembly lines, robots were successful in streamlining operations and reducing payrolls.

In the early 1980s union membership in the United States declined to its lowest level since the early 1930s. One reason was the lack of union funds devoted to recruiting new members: For the past two decades, only about 3 percent of union budgets were devoted to recruitment. Another problem was the ineffectiveness of union public relations. Unable to present their goals as being common to all workers, unions were instead seen as intrusive in or irrelevant to the workplace. Crystallizing these public views

Union members hold up signs at a rally against a trade agreement with China on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. (Elderfield/Liaison)

Was the 1981 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Association (PATCO) strike.

In early August 1981 the 11,300 PATCO federal air traffic controllers voiced displeasure with their treatment by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which ran the air-control towers, and staged a nationwide walkout. Among PATCO’s grievances were long hours, persistent understaffing, and relatively low pay. President Ronald W. Reagan declared the strike illegal, given their position as federal employees, and fired the controllers. The strike soon ended, nonunionized replacement controllers were hired, and in 1982 PATCO went bankrupt. Throughout the strike, some of the U. S. public supported the government’s actions, which set the stage for future decades of private-sector strikebreaking. Over the next two decades, strikes were broken at Maytag, Greyhound Bus (both 1983); Continental Airlines (1984); Hormel and the Chicago Tribune (1985); TWA and Boise Cascade (1986); International Paper (1987); Eastern Airlines (1989); the New York Daily News (1990); and Caterpillar (1992); among others. As a result of these strikes, some 300,000 strikers, during the 1980s, lost their jobs to replacement workers. In light of the power shift from workers to employers, strikes decreased dramatically, from approximately 290 per year during the 1970s to approximately 35 during the 1990s. Additionally, beginning in 1979 and continuing into the mid-1990s, workers’ real hourly wages decreased.

Another reason for decreased union membership was the growth of the international marketplace, which decreased demand for domestic goods and workers. Since the 1950s, the United States had been losing ground in manufacturing, and by the 1980s, countries such as Germany and Japan dominated markets for products including automobiles and electronics. International events also affected the labor market, particularly the unrest in the Middle East and actions of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) that led to higher oil prices. As oil prices rose in the 1970s, demand for American-made cars with poor gas mileage decreased, which in turn eliminated jobs in the automotive industry.

Workers in the 1980s and 1990s also found their jobs jeopardized by corporate resettlement. To reduce overall operating costs, domestic manufacturing plants originally located in the Northeast and Southeast were relocated to less union-friendly southern and southwestern United States. Even more damaging to U. S. workers was the corporate employment shift abroad. In countries such as China, Mexico, India, or Hong Kong, workers were employed for dollars per day in manufacturing and specialized computer jobs, effectively eliminating thousands of U. S. union positions.

Another factor affecting the decline in union membership was the decades-long shift from a manufacturing to a nonunionized service economy. Continuing the shift that began in the 1970s, service industry jobs in the 1980s grew at a higher rate than jobs in basic industries, such as construction. Generally, appetite for union memberships in these previously nonunionized service professions, from fast-food worker to bank employee, is limited, in part because of the jobs’ high turnover rates.

During this period, employers were also more active than they had been for decades in trying to keep companies from unionizing. Such efforts included promises to match union-level salaries if employees would remain un-unionized. More aggressive tactics included antiunion campaigns aimed at convincing workers not to unionize; such “union avoidance” plans bloomed after the success of the PATCO strike, with corporations hiring over 7,000 law and planning specialists to persuade workers not to unionize.

The antiunion movement was complicated by the less-than-active union support from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Months-long delays in ruling on illegal firings and demands for reinstatement left potential union organizers wary. Plans to streamline the NLRB and prohibit permanent replacements stalled in the House and Senate in the 1970s and 1990s.

Other antiunion government trends of the era include the deregulation of the airline and trucking industries in the 1970s; and the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993, which was strenuously fought by unions.

In 1995 John Sweeney, leader of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), became leader of the AFL-CIO and declared the end of the postwar labor era. Sweeney then called to rebuild union strength by devoting more attention to organizing, a practice that proved fruitful in the United Steel Workers (USW) grassroots campaign against unfair labor practices at Bridgestone/Firestone in the mid-1990s, after an earlier strike had failed. Sweeney also called for developing new union procedures and bargaining strategies, to meet the needs of a more varied 21st-century workforce that included part-time and professional workers, and often, a more cooperative, less adversarial management. For example, unions would need to adapt to represent autonomous professionals, such as doctors or engineers, now pressured by health-care conglomerates or public bureaucracies.

While manufacturing jobs and related union membership has declined over the past three decades, organized labor has experienced gains in areas of occupational growth, such as white-collar professions and the healthcare industry. As of 2000 the Service Employees International Union was the largest union in North America, with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) ranked second and the Teamsters union third. Union membership has increased substantially in many government-related professions, such as public school teaching, as well as private-sector arenas, such as health care, professional sports (players and nonplayers alike), and the arts. Among arts professionals now widely represented are members of ballet and opera companies, and symphony orchestras, specialized film professionals such as cinematographers and film editors, and musicians and studio engineers. University-based clerical and technical workers also improved wages and benefits or have become unionized during the 1980s and 1990s, often through grassroots initiatives that involved student or faculty support.

Despite years of government-related union setbacks and membership levels, the union remains a fixture in the American workplace. As of now, the union’s collective bargaining power still delivers a higher paycheck: In 2000, the median weekly earnings for a nonunion person employed in a full-time job was $542; for a union member, it was $691.

For the future, however, U. S. labor is looking outward to the international community of workers. Just as corporations are making global business alliances, some labor leaders point to the need for global worker alliances to protect workers’ rights. As AFL-CIO president John Sweeney told Mexican labor union members in 1998, “We want to. . . find practical ways to work together by seeking and developing coordinated cross-border organizing and bargaining strategies.”

Further reading: Steve Babson, The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points in American Labor, 1877-Present (Lan-ham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1999); John J. Flagler, The Labor Movement in the United States (Minneapolis, Minn.: Lerner Publications, 1990); Nelson Lichtenstein, et al., Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture & Society, Vol. 2, From the Gilded Age to the Present (New York: Pantheon, 1992).

—Melinda Corey