Earlier this month, an alliance of twelve labor groups in California defeated all four of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger?s ballot measures that would curtail workers? rights and benefits. The alliance representing two-and-a-half million workers -- mostly nurses, teachers, police officers and firefighters ?- proved that U.S. labor is still able to wield power. But membership in labor unions has steadily declined since the 1950s when one third of the U.S. work force was organized.
?We are now toward the very bottom of the industrialized countries in terms of the representation of workers,? says David Brody, a professor of labor history at the University of California and author of the new book: .
?In the private sector, we are below 8 percent now and that?s lower than it?s been for more than a century,? addas Professor Brody. By comparison, union membership is almost ten times higher in Scandinavian countries. More than 80 percent of the work force in Sweden and nearly 80 percent in Denmark and Finland are unionized. Union membership in other western European countries ranges from 20 percent to 50 percent of the labor force. At only nine percent of the labor force, France has the lowest union membership of all western European nations. But its workers have been known for organizing massive strikes that garner media attention and get results.
Robert Tobias, professor of public management at American University in Washington and former president of the National Treasury Employees Union, says the European unions are involved in politics far more than the American unions.
?The European unions differ quite dramatically from the American unions in the sense that American unions have pursued the rights of individual workers through the negotiation of collective bargaining agreements. In Europe, the unions have become a part of the political process and the political effort, and have pursued rights to the creation of legislation,? says Professor Tobias.
Many countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and Israel have labor parties representing their interests. The American labor movement has always been focused on the economy and job markets. Many historians say this has made it more independent and flexible. The power of American unions, they say, is based on the solidarity of workers and their willingness to go out on strike. But that changed dramatically in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan broke an air-traffic controller?s strike, replacing government employees who had walked out. Since then, economic changes have eroded the power of unions in many parts of the world.
Many analysts cite the growing power of multi-national corporations that can move their production lines from one country to another in search of cheap labor. Corporate leaders have responded by accusing unions of making the workforce inflexible. The difficulty of hiring temporary workers, firing those no longer needed and cutting down on benefits makes some employers reluctant to open up new jobs. They also say too many workers? protections make it hard to jumpstart sluggish economies and increase unemployment. Labor and socialist parties in many countries, including Britain and Germany, have succumbed to some of these economic pressures. University of California?s history professor David Brody says losses in the labor movement do not signal its inevitable demise.
?It?s not as if this is unprecedented what we are seeing now. That is, where so much manufacturing has now moved to less developed countries, in earlier days, a similar process took place within the United States, where you had a heavily industrialized sector in the northeast focusing around textiles, and industries like that, clothing [for example]. In the south, they opened up factories competing with those northeastern factories, but with cheap labor. And the northeastern industries declined. So it?s not exactly a new process, but it?s more striking.?
Professor Brody says that as many U-S industries developed from local to regional and then to a national level, so did unions. Today, he argues, the globalization of industries and services requires the internalization of labor unions. But he concedes it may be difficult due to different legal systems governing unions in different countries.
But Steve Stallone, a spokesman for the California-based International Longshore and Warehouse Union, says globalization can also work in employees? favor. He recalls a 1998 example in which his union supported the quest of a maritime union in Australia.