There are a lot of factors involved in the decline of the labor movement. The huge growth phase for unions started during the Great Depression years of the 1930s. There was a tremendous amount of organizing, coupled with labor law changes, most notably the passage of the NLRA in 1935. Unions were able to organize millions of workers through the 1940s and into the 1950s largely using the election procedures established by the NLRA. However, in the following decades, the union membership rate started to fall, and the decline accelerated in the 1980s and beyond.
From the 1950s through the 1970s, an average of about 500,000 private-sector workers participated in over 6,000 NLRB elections every year, about 1% of the workforce annually. But in recent years, there have been less than 2,000 elections per year in the private sector with fewer than 0.1% of all workers participating.
There are various ways to understand this decline and the role played by the NLRA framework. What’s certainly true is that after labor hit its peak in the 1950s, employers gradually began to find ways of undermining union organizing (see “Labor Movement Status and Recent Trends”).
Unions have not been able to find ways to maintain high levels of effective organizing as employers increasingly committed unfair labor practices with minimal penalties.
This was coupled with a number of conservative court opinions over time that eroded union power and emboldened employers. They allowed employers to replace striking workers, close union workplaces, and engage in effective union-busting practices. Unions have not been able to find ways to maintain high levels of effective organizing as employers increasingly committed unfair labor practices with minimal penalties.
The NLRA, while perhaps groundbreaking in the 1930s, has gotten more anti-worker over time due to the way it’s been interpreted and enforced.
The NLRA, while groundbreaking in the 1930s, has gotten more anti-worker over time due to the way it’s been interpreted and enforced. Labor law reforms to restrict union-busting practices and support organizing, such as the PRO Act, would be very helpful in rectifying these issues.
There’s another perspective that believes it’s the NLRA framework itself that is the problem. This is the position taken in the book “Tell the Bosses We’re Coming” by Shaun Richman which argues that “the combination of exclusive representation, mandatory agency fees, no-strike clauses and management rights are the foundation of our peculiar union shop” and has influenced unions to evolve characteristics that are no longer effective enough.
Unions allowed themselves to become domesticated and manageable, making political choices in how they would operate that have become difficult to undo.
Another related critique of unions from the left is that they have lost the militancy that helped them grow in the 1930s and have become staff bureaucracies that have learned to manage their decline. With the merging of the AFL and CIO in 1955, unions channeled the militancy and class-oriented unionism of their members into “business unionism,” conceding their strike rights over time and accepting management’s terms for control over day-to-day working conditions. Unions allowed themselves to become domesticated and manageable, making political choices in how they would operate that have become difficult to undo. From this perspective, unions need to recover that militant spirit in order to grow again.
While labor law reform will help unions grow considerably, unions may not be able to achieve meaningful labor law reform until they are large and disruptive enough to win it.
Coupled with this view is the idea, long promoted by Labor Notes and others, that unions have to be much more democratic and member-run in order to develop that necessary militancy. Recent books by the late union strategist Jane McAlevey stress the need for unions to embrace solid worker organizing, rather than mobilizing and advocacy. Joe Burns in “Class Struggle Unionism” emphasizes the need for unions to regain their militancy and ability to conduct successful strikes. (See “Union Renewal” in Further Resources.)
So unions find themselves with a dilemma. While labor law reform will help them grow considerably, they may not be able to achieve meaningful labor law reform until they are large and disruptive enough to win it. If unions continue to organize in the same ways they’ve been doing, they will not grow quickly enough. To increase union density by just 1% per year, unions would need to organize over one million workers annually into unions. But current election campaigns are organizing about 100,000 workers or less per year. While there was a recent surge in election wins over the last three years, it’s highly unlikely that trend will continue under this second Trump NLRB. Even if it did, since tens of millions of workers want to be in a union, at this rate of organizing, it would take unions hundreds of years to organize all these workers. The status quo is not sustainable. This is where pre-majority unionism can help.
