Union growth and decline: The impact of employer and union tactics

The past decade has generally not been a time of prosperity for organized labour, especially in the United States. It is now estimated that only about 19 per cent of the American workforce is unionized (Adams, 1985), compared with an all‐time high of approximately 30 per cent. It is widely believed that this results from changes in organizing strategies used by both unions and, in particular, employers. The resistance of American employers to unionization has clearly increased over the past quarter of a century, spawning a multimillion dollar industry (Bureau of National Affairs, 1985). At the forefront of the ‘union‐free environment’ movement is a formidable array of management consultants and attorneys, dubbed ‘union busters’ by a disdainful labour movement. This paper examines the nature of union organizing and employer counter‐organizing efforts and the role of the new breed of union resistance specialists. Although written from a North American perspective, the activities and research findings discussed here should be of relevance in Europe and elsewhere. Indeed, many American multinationals have implemented union resistance programmes in foreign subsidiaries and aspects of these programmes have been adopted by some non‐American firms.