A Short Course in Labor History
I ran across a good summary of over a century of labor union history, with comparisons between the US and European countries.
Talk about the big picture! Dramatic contrasts between U.S. and Europe, and long-term perspective that completely ignores the infamous PATCO strike as a downward turning point for labor in the U.S.
The author of this summary, Gerald Friedman of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, sees continual union decline since WWII, though simultaneously — and perhaps inconsistently — referring to 1950-75 as a ‘golden age’ for American unions.
A thumbnail sketch, selected from among many interesting points:
- Unions have typically grown in rapid spurts, very “short periods of social upheaval punctuated by major demonstrations and strikes.”
- These periods of rapid union growth end because the social upheaval provokes a hostile backlash.
- “Entering the twentieth century, the AFL appeared to have a winning strategy. Union membership rose sharply in the late 1890s, doubling between 1896 and 1900 and again between 1900 and 1904.”
- But, “[d]ependent on skilled craftsmen’s economic leverage, the AFL was poorly organized to battle large, technologically dynamic corporations.”
- The 1920s were an especially dark period for U.S. labor. Membership fell by a third between 1920 and 1924. “Unions survived only in the older trades.” By 1924, they were almost completely eliminated from the newer industries, including steel, automobiles, consumer electronics, chemicals and rubber.
- During the Great Depression, following passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), workers rushed into unions. “The greatest increase came among the unskilled, including coal miners, southern textile workers, northern apparel workers, Ohio tire makers, Detroit automobile workers, aluminum, lumber and sawmill workers.”
- Management resistance and divided union leadership killed this early New Deal union surge.
- Then came the Wagner Act and the Roosevelt landslides of 1934 and 1936. “Liberal Democratic governors and mayors gave crucial support to the early CIO, refusing to send police to evict sit-down strikers. This state support allowed the minority of workers who actively supported unionization to use force to overcome the passivity of the majority of workers and the opposition of the employers. The Open Shop of the 1920s was overwhelmed by an aggressive, government-backed labor movement.”
- After WW II, the U.S. was the advanced, capitalist democracy with the weakest labor movement — with unions going into prolonged decline right after World War II. At 35 %, the unionization rate in 1945 was the highest in American history, but even then it was lower than in most other advanced capitalist economies — and it’s been falling since.
- The post-war strike wave in 1945 and 1946 was the largest in American history, but it did little to enhance labor’s position. Instead, it provoked a powerful reaction among employers and others suspicious of growing union power.
- The quarter century after 1950 formed a ‘golden age’ for American unions.
- Union decline since WW II has brought the U.S. private-sector labor movement down to early twentieth century levels. “As a share of the nonagricultural labor force, union membership fell from its 1945 peak of 35 percent down to under 30 percent in the early 1970s. From there, decline became a general rout. In the 1970s, rising unemployment, increasing international competition, and the movement of industry to the nonunion South and to rural areas undermined the bargaining position of many American unions, leaving them vulnerable to a renewed management offensive.”
Source:
EH.Net [Economic History] Encyclopedia: “Labor Unions in the United States.”
This is a topic that is far from the practically oriented materials I normally try to post.
I guess I put it up here because I think it’s a fascinating topic; I wish I could take a college course on it.
Further Reading:
Wikipedia: “Labor unions in the United States”
US Labor History Resources for Teaching
George,
Interesting summary. What was the comparison w/ Euorpe? After recently going through Postwar by Tony Judt, it seems that in postwar Europe, unions were weak (maybe with the exception of Britain) because of a common desire for rapid economic growth and no stomach for confrontation.
It’s a long article, and undoubtedly not the only possible interpretation of the complex and lengthy history summarized, of course.
On postwar Europe, the author says:
“Union membership exploded during and after the war, nearly doubling between 1938 and 1946.”
“By 1947, unions had enrolled a majority of nonagricultural workers in Scandinavia, Australia, and Italy, and over 40 percent in most other European countries.”
He refers to “a post- war strike wave that included over 6 million strikers in France in 1948, 4 million in Italy in 1949 and 1950, and 5 million in the United States in 1946.”
He says: “In Europe, popular unrest led to a dramatic political shift to the left,” which resulted in major institutional changes such as the establishment of a new National Health Service in UK.
“Throughout Europe, the share of national income devoted to social services jumped dramatically, as did the share of income going to the working classes.”
“Unions and the political left were stronger everywhere throughout post-war Europe, but in some countries labor’s position deteriorated quickly. In France, Italy, and Japan, the popular front uniting Communists, socialists, and bourgeois liberals dissolved, and labor’s management opponents recovered state support, with the onset of the Cold War.”
“In these countries, union membership dropped after 1947 and unions remained on the defensive for over a decade in a largely adversarial industrial relations system.”
“Elsewhere, notably in countries with weak Communist movements, such as in Scandinavia but also in Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands, labor was able to compel management and state officials to accept strong and centralized labor movements as social partners.”
Since the 1960s:
“The wave of popular unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s would carry most European unions to new heights, briefly bringing membership to over 50 percent of the labor force in the United Kingdom and in Italy, and bringing socialists into the government in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom.”
“Since 1980, union membership has declined some and there has been some retrenchment in the welfare state. But the essentials of European welfare states and labor relations have remained.”
So it sounds like a mixed bag. But confrontation may have been less needed because of more sympathetic governments in some cases.
But the main point is not the absolute strength or weakness of unions in Europe, but the comparison to US, where the peak wasn’t as high, and the decline more dramatic. Look at the tables at the beginning of the article.