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Labor Unions

time, three-fourths of the organized workers in the United lation protecting workers, better employee-management
States were members of the AFL. relationships, and the shift from a manufacturing to a
In 1905 an organization called the Industrial Work- service economy (bringing into the workforce more
ers of the World was established. Though it was short- women and young people, who are not easily organized).
lived, this union introduced the sit-down strike and mass During the 1990s and the early years of the twenty-first
picketing. In the early 1920s, workers in the steel, alu- century, despite the decline in the percent of workers who
minum, auto, and rubber industries formed many indi- were unionized, nearly 16 million U.S. workers, between
vidual industrial unions (groups of employees working in one-eighth and one-sixth of the labor force, belonged to
the same industry, yet not using the same skills). These labor unions.
unions did not agree with the craft union concept (group-
ing workers with the same specific skill), which was the ORGANIZATION
organizational structure of the AFL. Therefore, in 1936
Labor unions are organized on several different levels.
they split with the AFL and became a new group of affil- Local unions represent members in a specific geographic
iated unions called the Congress of Industrial Organiza- area, such as a city, state, or region. These local unions
tions (CIO). Organizing complete industries instead of make up the base of a national union, which unites all its
individual crafts proved a successful way to deal with
affiliated local unions under one constitution. The Team-
mass-production industries, and the CIO’s membership
sters and the United Steel Workers of America are two
soon grew to nearly that of the AFL.
examples of large national unions, each uniting many
local unions. The decision-making process of national
GROWTH unions is decentralized, which allows decisions to be made
Even with so much union organization activity going on, at the local level, by those best qualified to make them.
there were fewer than 1 million union members in the Thus, the national union recognizes the autonomy of each
United States in 1900. Membership in labor unions grew local union yet unites them under one set of rules and
slowly from 1920 to 1935, but the modern labor move- grants each local union its charter.
ment was born in the decade between 1933 and 1944. Some unions have an international level. These inter-
The combination of New Deal labor legislation, competi- national unions have members both inside and outside
tion between the AFL and the CIO, and World War II the United States, such as in Canada. Their organization
(1939–1945) quadrupled union membership, which by is similar to national unions, with local unions being the
1937 was more than 5 million. Union membership con- base of the union structure. The primary emphasis of
tinued to increase from 1943 through 1956, reaching national unions is economic. Their main function is col-
more than 15 million in 1950. One-fourth of the labor lective bargaining, though much of the negotiation
force were union members at that time, when the govern- process occurs at the local union level. Bargaining labor-
ment officially sanctioned unions. management contracts, which deal with wages, hours, and
In 1955 the AFL and CIO settled their differences working conditions, and settling labor-management dis-
and merged into one extremely large labor organization. putes are the primary roles of the local and national union
All the major national unions in the United States today leadership.
except the National Education Association are affiliated The top level of labor union organization is the fed-
with the AFL-CIO. eration, such as the AFL-CIO. Such a federation is made
Union membership declined from 1956 to 1961, up of many national and/or international unions. The
when white-collar workers outnumbered blue-collar purpose of the federation level is to coordinate its affili-
workers for the first time, women were entering the work- ated unions, settle disputes between them, and serve as the
force in large numbers, and the economy was changing political representative of the union members.
from a production to a service industry orientation. In
1961 growth resumed; from 1964 to 1974, especially dur-
MEMBERSHIP POLICIES
ing the time of the Vietnam War, unions gained 4 million Various employment policies have been used in business
members, largely public-sector employees and profession-
and industry to determine union membership. The
als.
closed-shop policy, which was outlawed by the Taft-
Hartley Act in 1947, forced workers to join the union in
DECLINE order to be hired at a company and to remain a union
The percentage of U.S. workers who are union members member in order to continue employment. The union-
has fallen since the 1980s. This decline is largely due to shop policy requires all current employees of a company
the decrease in the number of blue-collar jobs, labor legis- to join the union when it is certified as their bargaining

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BUSINESS AND FINANCE, SECOND EDITION 451