Question

Perhaps more than any other Western nation, the United States is characterized by labor-management relations based on an adversarial system of bargaining and shop-level negotiations. This requires the existence of strong unions that can hold their own at the bargaining table and can organize an increasing proportion of the nation’s workers. Without the labor movement, the system serves workers only in some industries or fails to offset the power of the owners and managers of capital.

1. But why is the labor movement stagnating? Why has its membership shrunk from almost 30 percent of American wage earners to about 16 percent? And what are the prospects for the future of this social movement?

Answer 1

The labor movement and labor union is crucial in any country for the protection of the rights of the labors. However, as the world is moving towards globalization and due to invention of advanced technology, the production of goods takes place with sophisticated machinery and there is falling requirement of labor force. As a result, the labor movement is stagnating in US.

Moreover, after the passage of Taft-Hartley Act and the failure of a coordinated campaign to unionize the South have also reduced the impact of labor union and thus it is stagnating. It prohibited secondary boycotts and sympathy boycotts and opened the door to the right to work laws - which prohibited the employers to hire only the unionized workers and thus there is a falling power of labor unions. Labor union membership also shrunk from 30% to 16% due to the falling importance of labor unions.

In future also as there is a growing use of advanced machinery and technology the importance of labor unions would come down. Moreover, the continuing importance of Taft-Hartley Act and the failure of a coordinated campaign to unionize the South would even make the condition worse for the labor movements.