Little Labor: How Union Decline Is Changing the American Landscape

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial decrying the role of Big Labor in shaping the Obama administration’s domestic policy expressed worry that unions’ outsize clout would force higher taxes on investment income. Such articles are typical fare for a newspaper long critical of the labor movement’s role in American life. But what’s strange is the continued use of “Big Labor” as a shorthand 646moniker for trade unions in the contemporary United States. If organized labor remains big today, then back in its post-World War II peak, it was positively enormous. Fully one-third of the private sector workforce belonged to a labor union during the 1950s, and millions more resided in households reliant on a union wage. During the heyday of collective bargaining in this country, unions helped pattern pay and benefit packages among nonunion workers, as employers matched union contracts to forestall organizing drives and maintain a competitive workforce. Politicians, Democrats especially, depended on organized labor’s support during elections and consulted closely with labor leaders when devising policy in office. Big Labor, then, was once quite big indeed.