The Power of Unions in the US Today - Essay Example

The Power of Unions in the U.S Today Introduction Unions have an inevitable importance in the US labor history. Organizedlabor and labor movements assisted the US workers to attain a range of privileges such as 40 hour work week, workplace safety, overtime pay, and other employee benefits. However, today the power of unions in the US is declining significantly due to several reasons. This paper will scrutinize the power of unions in the United States today. Labor Unions in US Today Today almost all labor unions operate under two larger umbrella organizations such as the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Change to Win Federation. Both the organizations play a significant role promoting legislation and policies favorable to workers in US and Canada. When federal and state laws are applicable to public sector unions, National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) regulates private sector unions. While analyzing the labor history of the United States, it is clear that labor unions have played an inevitable role in improving the wages and working conditions of labors. Today labor unions have some political powers and influences to force the government to form and amend labor laws to enhance the welfare of US workers. As Greenhouse points out, union workers earned median weekly income of $943 in 2012 whereas this income was only $742 in case of nonunion workers. According to a federal government evaluation on the pay scale in the country (as reported in Schultz and Schultz), it was identified that members of labor unions earn up to 33% more income than nonunion members. In addition, employees in a labor union enjoy more job security, high quality work environment, and other benefits than their nonunion counterparts (271-272). The Declining Power of Unions Although labor unions have been assisting employees to enjoy better wages, working conditions, and other benefits for decades, studies and reports indicate that the power of unions in the US is declining. While analyzing the statistical data on the union membership, it seems that today American unions have only a fraction of the influence they had a few decades ago. To illustrate, as Leves reports in CNN, nearly 20% workers were union members in 1983 and currently it has been dropped to 12%. This decline has been worse in the private sector where union membership fell from 17% in 1983 to only 7% today. The annual summary of the unionization in the United States published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics also comes up with the similar claims. According to this report (as cited in Warner), the union membership of wage and salary workers declined from 11.8% in 2011 to 11.3% in 2012. This figure was approximately 30% a half century ago. There are several reasons for the decline of union power in the United States. The situations in the 1980s and 1990s where workers were seriously abused by employers have changed today and it significantly undermined the position of organized labor. Today employers are forced to comply with federal employment laws and other anti-discrimination policies and therefore nowadays employees are not much affected by employment disparities, unfair wages, or human right violations. This changing situation markedly contributed to shrinking share of the workforce in labor unions. Similarly, the intensity of market competition is very high today and hence company face competition threats from domestic and foreign rivals. In order to survive this tough business environment, every company strives to cut down its expenditure and consequently managements would not be willing to grant unions’ demands for higher wages and other benefits. In addition, automation has been growing to be a serious challenge to labor unions as labor-saving automated machineries are being introduced in many factories to replace labor efforts. Therefore today unions hesitate to strike against employers fearing that employees would be terminated from their job. The shift to the service industry employment is also identified to be major cause contributing to the declining power of US unions because labor unions have been traditionally weaker in the service sector. People less receptive to union membership, including women, young people, and temporary/part-time workers, seized a significant proportion of the new employment opportunities created in the country in recent years. In addition, most of the American industries have migrated to southern and western regions of the country where union activities are weaker as compared to northern and eastern parts of the US. Undoubtedly, corruption allegations against big Teamsters Union and other unions put labor union movements under suspicion. Unions’ past successes in improving wages and the work environment were often ignored by the independent-minded new generation workers, claiming that they do not need help of a union to press their causes. According to Conte and Karr, the surprising growth of the US economy in late 1990s instilled a new confidence in employees and they believed that a labor movement was no longer needed to improve their working conditions. The right-to-work law, adopted by many US states, eliminates people’s obligation to pay unions to work at unionized agencies. This legislation would significantly decrease union funding and hence unions may struggle to raise adequate funds to finance its operations. In US states where the right-to-work law is in force, workers are less likely to choose to organize. Today big private companies spend a lot of money to suppress public sector unions so as to enjoy extreme control over workers and to reduce the chances of labor movements against them. Some industry analysts and economists in the US encourage workers to come out from organized labor in order to recover from the recession and to create new jobs in the country. Evidently such campaigns greatly contributed to the decline of union power in the United States. In the words of Chris Edwards, a supporter of right-to-work laws, unions in the private sector lost their power over time simply because of the fact that they add nothing to worker productivity (Leves). Finally, globalization played a notable role in reducing the power of unions in the US. To make it clear, globalization enhanced the cross border flow of labor and therefore today it is easy for companies to hire low-wage employees from Third World countries where unemployment rate is high. In addition, today companies outsource their works to foreign countries where cheap labor is available. Conclusion From the above discussion, it is clear that the power of unions in the United States is declining today and this change could be attributed to everything from globalization to terrific technological advancements. Adoption of right-to-work law by many US states also contributed to shrinking power of unions in the country. Furthermore, today companies have automated machineries to replace human efforts, and hence labor unions cannot effectively negotiate with the management. Works Cited Conte, Christopher and Karr, Albert R. An Outline of the U.S. Economy. chapter: “Labor in America: The Workers Role”. Web. 5 Aug 2014. http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/oecon/ Greenhouse, Steven. “Share of the Work Force in a Union Falls to a 97-Year Low, 11.3%”. The New York Times, January 23, 2013. Levs, Josh. “Analysis: Why Americas unions are losing power”. CNN, December 12, 2012. Schultz, Dane P and Schultz, Sydney Ellen. Psychology and Work Today: An Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology. US: Pearson, 2010. Print. Warner, Kris. “The Real Reason for the Decline of American Unions”. Bloomberg, Jan 23, 2013. Read More