American Unions

Labor unions represent United States workers in many industries recognized under US labor law since the 1935 enactment of the National Labor Relations Act. Their activity centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members in disputes with management over violations of contract provisions. Larger labor unions also typically engage in lobbying activities and electioneering at the state and federal level.

Most unions in the United States are aligned with one of two larger umbrella organizations: the AFL-CIO created in 1955, and the Change to Win Federation (Strategic Organizing Center or SOC) which split from the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) in 2005. Both advocate policies and legislation on behalf of workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics. The AFL–CIO is especially concerned with global trade issues.

The percentage of workers belonging to a union (or total labor union "density") varies by country. In 2022 it was 10.1% in the United States, compared to 20.1% in 1983. There were 14.3 million members in the U.S. in 2022, down from 17.7 million in 1983. Union membership in the private sector has fallen to 6.0%, one fifth that of public sector workers, at 33.1% (2022). From a global perspective, in 2016 the US had the fifth lowest labor union density of the 36 OECD member nations.See
Trade Union Density.
OECD. StatExtracts. Retrieved: January 1, 2017.

In the 21st century, the most prominent unions are among public sector employees such as city employees, government workers, teachers and police. Members of unions are disproportionately older, male, and residents of the Northeast, the Midwest, and California.Not With a Bang, But a Whimper: The Long, Slow Death Spiral of America's Labor Movement
Richard Yeselson, ''The New Republic'', June 6, 2012 There is a substantial wage gap between union and nonunion workers in the U.S.; unionized workers average higher pay than comparable nonunion workers (when controlling for individual, job, and labor market characteristics); research shows that the union wage gaps are higher in the private sector than in the public sector, and higher for men than women. Private-sector union strength positively affects the wages of nonunion private-sector wages" (when controlling for background conditions, such as industry, the automation risk, offshoring, public-sector union strength, overall employment levels, and other factors); this is called the union spillover effect.

Although much smaller compared to their peak membership in the 1950s, American unions remain a political factor, both through mobilization of their own memberships and through coalitions with like-minded activist organizations around issues such as immigrant rights, environmental protections, trade policy, health care, and living wage campaigns. Of special concern are efforts by cities and states to reduce the pension obligations owed to unionized workers who retire in the future. A study of U.S. elections from 1964 to 2004 found that unions increase voter turnout of both members and nonmembers.Jan E. Leighley & Jonathan Nagler
Unions, Voter Turnout, and Class Bias in the U.S. Electorate, 1964–2004
''Journal of Politics'', Vol 69, Issue 2 (2007), pp. 430-441. Labor unions have a longstanding alliance with the Democratic Party, and union members make up an important part of the party's base. By contrast, the Republican Party has opposed unions and championed various anti-union policies, such as the adoption of right-to-work laws, restrictions on public-sector union collective bargaining, the repeal of prevailing wage laws, and preemption of local minimum wage laws.

There is substantial evidence that labor unions reduce economic inequality. Research suggests that rising income inequality in the United States is partially attributable to the decline of the labor movement and union membership,Doree Armstrong (February 12, 2014)
Jake Rosenfeld explores the sharp decline of union membership, influence
''UW Today''. Retrieved December 19, 2014. See also: Jake Rosenfeld (2014)
What Unions No Longer Do
'. Harvard University Press. and that this is not only a correlation. Research has also found that unions can harm profitability, employment and business growth rates.Hirsch, Barry T. "What do unions do for economic performance?." Journal of Labor Research 25, no. 3 (2004): 415–455.Vedder, Richard, and Lowell Gallaway. "The economic effects of labor unions revisited." Journal of labor research 23, no. 1 (2002): 105-130.

History

Unions began forming in the mid-19th century in response to the social and economic impact of the Industrial Revolution. National labor unions began to form in the post-Civil War Era. The Knights of Labor emerged as a major force in the late 1880s, but it collapsed because of poor organization, lack of effective leadership, disagreement over goals, and strong opposition from employers and government forces.

The American Federation of Labor, founded in 1886 and led by Samuel Gompers until his death in 1924, proved much more durable. It arose as a loose coalition of various local unions. It helped coordinate and support strikes and eventually became a major player in national politics, usually on the side of the Democrats.

American labor unions benefited greatly from the New Deal policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1930s. The Wagner Act, in particular, legally protected the right of unions to organize. Unions from this point developed increasingly closer ties to the Democratic Party, and were considered a backbone element of the New Deal Coalition.

Post-WWII

Pro-business conservatives gained control of Congress in 1946, and in 1947 passed the Taft–Hartley Act, drafted by Senator Robert A. Taft. President Truman vetoed it but the Conservative coalition overrode the veto. The veto override had considerable Democratic support, including 106 out of 177 Democrats in the House, and 20 out of 42 Democrats in the Senate. The law, which is still in effect, banned union contributions to political candidates, restricted the power of unions to call strikes that "threatened national security," and forced the expulsion of Communist union leaders (the Supreme Court found the anticommunist provision to be unconstitutional, and it is no longer in force). The unions campaigned vigorously for years to repeal the law but failed. During the late 1950s, the Landrum Griffin Act of 1959 passed in the wake of Congressional investigations of corruption and undemocratic internal politics in the Teamsters and other unions.

In 1955, the two largest labor organizations, the AFL and CIO, merged, ending a division of over 20 years. AFL President George Meany became President of the new AFL–CIO, and AFL Secretary-Treasurer William Schnitzler became AFL–CIO Secretary-Treasurer. The draft constitution was primarily written by AFL Vice President Matthew Woll and CIO General Counsel Arthur Goldberg, while the joint policy statements were written by Woll, CIO Secretary-Treasurer James Carey, CIO vice presidents David McDonald and Joseph Curran, Brotherhood of Railway Clerks President George Harrison, and Illinois AFL–CIO President Reuben Soderstrom.

The percentage of workers belonging to a union (or "density") in the United States peaked in 1954 at almost 35% and the total number of union members peaked in 1979 at an estimated 21.0 million. Membership has declined since, with private sector union membership beginning a steady decline that continues into the 2010s, but the membership of public sector unions grew steadily.

After 1960 public sector unions grew rapidly and secured good wages and high pensions for their members. While manufacturing and farming steadily declined, state- and local-government employment quadrupled from 4 million workers in 1950 to 12 million in 1976 and 16.6 million in 2009. Adding in the 3.7 million federal civilian employees, in 2010 8.4 million government workers were represented by unions, including 31% of federal workers, 35% of state workers and 46% of local workers.

By the 1970s, a rapidly increasing flow of imports (such as automobiles, steel and electronics from Germany and Japan, and clothing and shoes from Asia) undercut American producers. By the 1980s there was a large-scale shift in employment with fewer workers in high-wage sectors and more in the low-wage sectors. Many companies closed or moved factories to Southern states (where unions were weak), countered the threat of a strike by threatening to close or move a plant, or moved their factories offshore to low-wage countries. The number of major strikes and lockouts fell by 97% from 381 in 1970 to 187 in 1980 to only 11 in 2010. On the political front, the shrinking unions lost influence in the Democratic Party, and pro-Union liberal Republicans faded away. Union membership among workers in private industry shrank dramatically, though after 1970 there was growth in employees unions of federal, state and local governments. The intellectual mood in the 1970s and 1980s favored deregulation and free competition.Martha Derthick and Paul J. Quirk, ''The Politics of Deregulation'' (1985) p 218 Numerous industries were deregulated, including airlines, trucking, railroads and telephones, over the objections of the unions involved. The climax came when President Ronald Reagan—a former union president—broke the illegal Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) strike in 1981, dealing a major blow to unions.

Republicans began to push through legislative blueprints to curb the power of public employee unions as well as eliminate business regulations.

Labor unions in the 21st century

Most labor unions in the United States are members of one of two larger umbrella organizations: the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) or the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), which split from the AFL–CIO in 2005–2006. Both organizations advocate policies and legislation favorable to workers in the United States and Canada, and take an active role in politics favoring the Democratic party but not exclusively so. The AFL–CIO is especially concerned with global trade and economic issues.

Private sector unions are regulated by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), passed in 1935 and amended since then. The law is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent federal agency. Public sector unions are regulated partly by federal and partly by state laws. In general they have shown robust growth rates, because wages and working conditions are set through negotiations with elected local and state officials.

To join a traditional labor union, workers must either be given voluntary recognition from their employer or have a majority of workers in a bargaining unit vote for union representation. In either case, the government must then certify the newly formed union. Other forms of unionism include minority unionism, solidarity unionism, and the practices of organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World, which do not always follow traditional organizational models.

Public sector worker unions are governed by labor laws and labor boards in each of the 50 states. Northern states typically model their laws and boards after the NLRA and the NLRB. In other states, public workers have no right to establish a union as a legal entity. (About 40% of public employees in the USA do not have the right to organize a legally established union.)

A review conducted by the federal government on pay scale shows that employees in a labor union earn up to 33% more income than their nonunion counterparts, as well as having more job security, and safer and higher-quality work conditions. The median weekly income for union workers was $973 in 2014, compared with $763 for nonunion workers.

New media organizations and later traditional newspapers led a wave of unionization since 2015, spurred by losses during the Great Recession and start-up layoffs. NewsGuild and Writers Guild of America won many of these efforts, including 5,000 journalists across 90 organizations.

Labor negotiations

Once the union won the support of a majority of the bargaining unit and is certified in a workplace, it has the sole authority to negotiate the conditions of employment. Under the NLRA, employees can also, if there is no majority support, form a minority union which represents the rights of only those members who choose to join. Businesses, however, do not have to recognize the minority union as a collective bargaining agent for its members, and therefore the minority union's power is limited. This minority model was once widely used, but was discarded when unions began to consistently win majority support. Unions are beginning to revisit the members-only model of unionism, because of new changes to labor law, which unions view as curbing workers' ability to organize.

The employer and the union write the terms and conditions of employment in a legally binding contract. When disputes arise over the contract, most contracts call for the parties to resolve their differences through a grievance process to see if the dispute can be mutually resolved. If the union and the employer still cannot settle the matter, either party can choose to send the dispute to arbitration, where the case is argued before a neutral third party.

Right-to-work statutes forbid unions from negotiating union shops and agency shops. Thus, while unions do exist in "right-to-work" states, they are typically weaker.

Members of labor unions enjoy "Weingarten Rights." If management questions the union member on a matter that may lead to discipline or other changes in working conditions, union members can request representation by a union representative. Weingarten Rights are named for the first Supreme Court decision to recognize those rights.

The NLRA goes farther in protecting the right of workers to organize unions. It protects the right of workers to engage in any "concerted activity" for mutual aid or protection. Thus, no union connection is needed. Concerted activity "in its inception involves only a speaker and a listener, for such activity is an indispensable preliminary step to employee self-organization."

Unions are advocating new federal legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), that would allow workers to elect union representation by simply signing a support card (card check). The existing process established by federal law requires at least 30% of employees to sign cards for the union, then wait 45 to 90 days for a federal official to conduct a secret ballot election in which a simple majority of the employees must vote for the union in order to obligate the employer to bargain.

Unions report that, under the present system, many employers use the 45- to 90-day period to conduct antiunion campaigns. Some opponents of this legislation fear that removing secret balloting from the process, will lead to the intimidation and coercion of workers on behalf of the unions. During the 2008 elections, the EFCA had widespread support of many legislators in the House and Senate, and of the President. Since then, support for the "card check" provisions of the EFCA subsided substantially.

Membership

Union membership had been declining in the US since 1954, and since 1967, as union membership rates decreased, the middle class share of aggregate income shrank correspondingly. In 2007, the labor department reported the first increase in union memberships in 25 years and the largest increase since 1979. Most of the recent gains in union membership have been in the service sector while the number of unionized employees in the manufacturing sector has declined. Most of the gains in the service sector have come in West Coast states like California where union membership is now at 16.7% compared with a national average of about 12.1%.

Historically, the rapid growth of public employee unions since the 1960s has served to mask an even more dramatic decline in private-sector union membership.

At the apex of union density in the 1940s, only about 9.8% of public employees were represented by unions, while 33.9% of private, non-agricultural workers had such representation. In this decade, those proportions have essentially reversed, with 36% of public workers being represented by unions while private sector union density had plummeted to around 7%. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics most recent survey indicates that union membership in the US has risen to 12.4% of all workers, from 12.1% in 2007. For a short period, private sector union membership rebounded, increasing from 7.5% in 2007 to 7.6% in 2008. However, that trend has since reversed. In 2013 there were 14.5 million members in the U.S., compared with 17.7 million in 1983. In 2013, the percentage of workers belonging to a union was 11.3%, compared to 20.1% in 1983. The rate for the private sector was 6.4%, and for the public sector 35.3%.Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Union Membership Summary
Jan 24, 2014
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In 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that labor union membership hit an all-time low in the U.S., dropping from 10.3% to 10.1%.

Between 2005 and 2014, the National Labor Relations Board recorded 18,577 labor union representation elections; in 11,086 of these elections (60 percent), the majority of workers voted for union representation. Most of the elections (15,517) were triggered by employee petitions for representation, of which unions won 9,933. Less common were elections caused by employee petitions for decertification (2,792, of which unions won 1,070), and employer-filed petitions for either representation or decertification (268, of which unions won 85).

Labor education programs

In the US, labor education programs such as the Harvard Trade Union Program created in 1942 by Harvard University professor John Thomas Dunlop sought to educate union members to deal with important contemporary workplace and labor law issues of the day. The Harvard Trade Union Program is currently part of a broader initiative at Harvard Law School called the Labor and Worklife Program that deals with a wide variety of labor and employment issues from union pension investment funds to the effects of nanotechnology on labor markets and the workplace.

Cornell University is known to be one of the leading centers for labor education in the world, establishing the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1945. The school's mission is to prepare leaders, inform national and international employment and labor policy, and improve working lives through undergraduate and graduate education. The school publishes the Industrial and Labor Relations Review and had Frances Perkins on its faculty. The school has six academic departments: Economics, Human Resource Management, International and Comparative Labor, Labor Relations, Organizational Behavior, and Social Statistics. Classes include "Politics of the Global North" and "Economic Analysis of the University."

Jurisdiction

Labor unions use the term ''jurisdiction'' to refer to their claims to represent workers who perform a certain type of work and the right of their members to perform such work. For example, the work of unloading containerized cargo at United States ports, which the International Longshoremen's Association, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have claimed rightfully should be assigned to workers they represent. A jurisdictional strike is a concerted refusal to work undertaken by a union to assert its members' right to such job assignments and to protest the assignment of disputed work to members of another union or to unorganized workers. Jurisdictional strikes occur most frequently in the United States in the construction industry.Hunt, James W. and Strongin, Patricia K. ''The Law of the Workplace: Rights of Employers and Employees.'' 3rd ed. Washington, D.C.: BNA Books, 1994. ; Whitney, Nathaniel Rugges. ''Jurisdiction in American Building-Trades Unions.'' Charleston, S.C.: BiblioBazaar, 2008 (originally published 1914).

Unions also use jurisdiction to refer to the geographical boundaries of their operations, as in those cases in which a national or international union allocates the right to represent workers among different local unions based on the place of those workers' employment, either along geographical lines or by adopting the boundaries between political jurisdictions.

Labor-environment coalitions

To help counter their steady decline in power, in the 1980s labor unions began to form coalitions locally, nationally, and globally with religious groups, social movements, politicians, and sometimes employers. There was a general shift away from specific, interest group advocacy and towards large-scale pro-democracy movements.

Coalitions between labor unions and environmental groups are prominent in interest areas of global trade and health. The unification was unique given the two sides' rocky history and notable differences. Unions are very hierarchical and prioritize jobs, with typically working-class members, while environmental groups tend to consist of middle class and white-collar members and focus primarily on issues related to climate and the environment. Tensions arose in the past when environmental groups pushed for environmental protection regulations without considering the effects on jobs or the side effects on worker safety, unintentionally antagonizing unions.

Labor unions would sometimes side with employers even though employers are often seen as antithetical to unionization, since no employers mean no jobs. Labor unions have sometimes worked against environmental groups when environmental activism was seen as limiting to economic growth. This antagonization was further encouraged by employers in a politically motivated strategy referred to as “job blackmail,” and has been effective in pitting the movements against each other.

Labor unions and environmental groups first began to collaborate internationally when the Reagan administration in the 1980s launched attacks on environmental regulations around the same time that they fired thousands of striking air traffic control employees.

Public opinion

Although not as overwhelmingly supportive as it was from the 1930s through the early 1960s, a clear majority of the American public approves of labor unions. The Gallup organization has tracked public opinion of unions since 1936, when it found that 72 percent approved of unions. The overwhelming approval declined in the late 1960s, but – except for one poll in 2009 in which the unions received a favorable rating by only 48 percent of those interviewed, majorities have always supported labor unions. A Gallup Poll released August 2018 showed 62% of respondents approving unions, the highest level in over a decade. Disapproval of unions was expressed by 32%. They polled opinion again in August 2022, finding that approval had risen to 71%, the highest positive opinion since the year 1965, and that approval had been consistently rising since 2016, where it was found to be 56%.

On the question of whether or not unions should have more influence or less influence, Gallup has found the public consistently split since Gallup first posed the question in 2000, with no majority favoring either more influence or less influence. In August 2018, 39 percent wanted unions to have more influence, 29 percent less influence, with 26 percent wanting the influence of labor unions to remain about the same.

A Pew Research Center poll from 2009 to 2010 found a drop in labor union support during the Great Recession sitting at 41% favorable and 40% unfavorable. In 2018, union support rose to 55% favorable with just 33% unfavorable. Despite this, union membership had continued to fall.

Possible causes of drop in membership

Although most industrialized countries have seen a drop in unionization rates, the drop in union density (the unionized proportion of the working population) has been more significant in the United States than elsewhere.

Global trends

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics surveyed the histories of union membership rates in industrialized countries from 1970 to 2003, and found that of 20 advanced economies which had union density statistics going back to 1970, 16 of them had experienced drops in union density from 1970 to 2003. Over the same period during which union density in the US declined from 23.5 percent to 12.4 percent, some countries saw even steeper drops. Australian unionization fell from 50.2 percent in 1970 to 22.9 percent in 2003, in New Zealand it dropped from 55.2 percent to 22.1 percent, and in Austria union participation fell from 62.8 percent down to 35.4 percent. All the English-speaking countries studied saw union membership decline to some degree. In the United Kingdom, union participation fell from 44.8 percent in 1970 to 29.3 percent in 2003. In Ireland the decline was from 53.7 percent down to 35.3 percent. Canada had one of the smallest declines over the period, going from 31.6 percent in 1970 to 28.4 percent in 2003. Most of the countries studied started in 1970 with higher participation rates than the US, but France, which in 1970 had a union participation rate of 21.7 percent, by 2003 had fallen to 8.3 percent. The remaining four countries which had gained in union density were Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Belgium.

Rise of the professional-managerial class

The professional–managerial class (PMC) refers to a social class that controls production processes through occupying a superior management position, and is neither working class nor upper class. This group of upper middle class professionals is distinguished from other social classes by their training and education, typically university degrees. with occupations thought to offer influence on society that would otherwise be available only to capital owners.

As the educational attainment and white-collar employment of the United States has increased, blue-collar employment that was previously unionized has decreased. Thomas Frank argued in his 2016 book ''Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People?'' that the Democratic Party changed over time to support the professional class instead of unions.

Popularity

Public approval of unions climbed during the 1980s much as it did in other industrialized nations,Sexton, Patricia Cayo. "The Decline of the Labor Movement." The Social Movements Reader: Cases and Concepts. Goodwin, Jeff and James M. Jasper, eds. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2003 but declined to below 50% for the first time in 2009 during the Great Recession. It is not clear if this is a long-term trend or a function of a high unemployment rate which historically correlates with lower public approval of labor unions.State Of The Unions by James Surowiecki
newyorker.com, January 17, 2011

One explanation for loss of public support is simply the lack of union power or critical mass. No longer do a sizable percentage of American workers belong to unions, or have family members who do. Unions no longer carry the "threat effect": the power of unions to raise wages of non-union shops by virtue of the threat of unions to organize those shops.

Polls of public opinion and labor unions

A ''New York Times''/ CBS Poll found that 60% of Americans opposed restricting collective bargaining while 33% were for it. The poll also found that 56% of Americans opposed reducing pay of public employees compared to the 37% who approved. The details of the poll also stated that 26% of those surveyed, thought pay and benefits for public employees were too high, 25% thought too low, and 36% thought about right. Mark Tapscott of the ''Washington Examiner'' criticized the poll, accusing it of over-sampling union and public employee households.

A Gallup poll released on March 9, 2011, showed that Americans were more likely to support limiting the collective bargaining powers of state employee unions to balance a state's budget (49%) than disapprove of such a measure (45%), while 6% had no opinion. 66% of Republicans approved of such a measure as did 51% of independents. Only 31% of Democrats approved.

A Gallup poll released on March 11, 2011, showed that nationwide, Americans were more likely to give unions a negative word or phrase when describing them (38%) than a positive word or phrase (34%). 17% were neutral and 12% didn't know. Republicans were much more likely to say a negative term (58%) than Democrats (19%). Democrats were much more likely to say a positive term (49%) than Republicans (18%).

A nationwide Gallup poll (margin of error ±4%) released on April 1, 2011, showed the following;
* When asked if they supported the labor unions or the governors in state disputes; 48% said they supported the unions, 39% said the governors, 4% said neither, and 9% had no opinion.
* Women supported the governors much less than men. 45% of men said they supported the governors, while 46% said they supported the unions. This compares to only 33% of women who said they supported the governors and 50% who said they supported the unions.
* All areas of the US (East, Midwest, South, West) were more likely to support unions than the governors. The largest gap being in the East with 35% supporting the governors and 52% supporting the unions, and the smallest gap being in the West with 41% supporting the governors and 44% the unions.
* 18- to 34-year-olds were much more likely to support unions than those over 34 years of age. Only 27% of 18- to 34-year-olds supported the governors, while 61% supported the unions. Americans ages 35 to 54 slightly supported the unions more than governors, with 40% supporting the governors and 43% the unions. Americans 55 and older were tied when asked, with 45% supporting the governors and 45% the unions.
* Republicans were much more likely to support the governors when asked with 65% supporting the governors and 25% the unions. Independents slightly supported unions more, with 40% supporting the governors and 45% the unions. Democrats were overwhelmingly in support of the unions. 70% of Democrats supported the unions, while only 19% supported the governors.
* Those who said they were following the situation not too closely or not at all supported the unions over governors, with a 14–point (45% to 31%) margin. Those who said they were following the situation somewhat closely supported the unions over governors by a 52–41 margin. Those who said that they were following the situation very closely were only slightly more likely to support the unions over the governors, with a 49–48 margin.

A nationwide Gallup poll released on August 31, 2011, revealed the following:
* 52% of Americans approved of labor unions, unchanged from 2010.
* 78% of Democrats approved of labor unions, up from 71% in 2010.
* 52% of Independents approved of labor unions, up from 49% in 2010.
* 26% of Republicans approved of labor unions, down from 34% in 2010.
A nationwide Gallup poll released on September 1, 2011, revealed the following:
* 55% of Americans believed that labor unions will become weaker in the United States as time goes by, an all-time high. This compared to 22% who said their power would stay the same, and 20% who said they would get stronger.
* The majority of Republicans and Independents believed labor unions would further weaken by a 58% and 57% percentage margin respectively. A plurality of Democrats believed the same, at 46%.
* 42% of Americans want labor unions to have less influence, tied for the all-time high set in 2009. 30% wanted more influence and 25% wanted the same amount of influence.
* The majority of Republicans wanted labor unions to have less influence, at 69%.
* A plurality of Independents wanted labor unions to have less influence, at 40%.
* A plurality of Democrats wanted labor unions to have more influence, at 45%.
* The majority of Americans believed labor unions mostly helped members of unions by a 68 to 28 margin.
* A plurality of Americans believed labor unions mostly helped the companies where workers are unionized by a 48–44 margin.
* A plurality of Americans believed labor unions mostly helped state and local governments by a 47–45 margin.
* A plurality of Americans believed labor unions mostly hurt the US economy in general by a 49–45 margin.
* The majority of Americans believed labor unions mostly hurt workers who are not members of unions by a 56–34 margin.

Institutional environments

A broad range of forces have been identified as potential contributors to the drop in union density across countries. Sano and Williamson outline quantitative studies that assess the relevance of these factors across countries.Sano, Joelle and John B. Williamson. (2008) "Factors Affecting Union Decline and their Implications for Labor Reform," ''International Journal of Comparative Sociology'' 49: 479-500 The first relevant set of factors relate to the receptiveness of unions' institutional environments. For example, the presence of a Ghent system (where unions are responsible for the distribution of unemployment insurance) and of centralized collective bargaining (organized at a national or industry level as opposed to local or firm level) have both been shown to give unions more bargaining power and to correlate positively to higher rates of union density.

Unions have enjoyed higher rates of success in locations where they have greater access to the workplace as an organizing space (as determined both by law and by employer acceptance), and where they benefit from a corporatist relationship to the state and are thus allowed to participate more directly in the official governance structure. Moreover, the fluctuations of business cycles, particularly the rise and fall of unemployment rates and inflation, are also closely linked to changes in union density.

Labor legislation

Labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan attributes the drop to the long-term effects of the 1947 Taft–Hartley Act, which slowed and then halted labor's growth and then, over many decades, enabled management to roll back labor's previous gains.The United States of Inequality, Entry 6: The Great Divergence and the death of organized labor.
By Timothy Noah, ''Slate'', September 12, 2010

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