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Southern New Hampshire University
OL-610: Employee and Labor Relations
Short Paper: Union Membership Decline
Union membership in the US has been declining for some time. Unions were founded with the intention of
protecting workers, paying them fairly, and guaranteeing that they were in safe workplaces. When they were
founded, worker safety was the paramount concern, and a large portion of the labor force was employed in
factories. Unionization creates authority through contracts that establish salary for a predetermined period.
Furthermore, it offers employees a voice in how their employers manage the job relationship. Thus, by making
businesses respond to worker grievances and assisting their members at the risk of higher costs, unions serve the
public interest. But over time, as the workforce changes, we have seen a steady decline in union membership.
Several theories have been made out as to why union membership has declined. "One theory traces the decline
to aggressive employer actions to fight organizing campaigns, build new plants where they will not be initially
unionized and where antipathy toward unions probably exists, and violate or ignore labor laws aimed at
protecting collective bargaining." Employers are primarily affected by this argument, claims Fossum (2015).
Employers have dominated authority for a very long time, if not entirely. Their control extends to the selection
of new hires, compensation, workload, and working conditions. Employees are supposed to take the benefits
that have been provided to them. Companies see unions as a threat since their purpose is to support employees
by giving them a voice and power.
To stop unions from forming, employers purposefully employed intimidation, intimidated pro-union people, and
even set rules on when and how unions may tie a knot at work. The many laws that are in place make it much
harder for unions to develop in the workplace; some of them even create groups whose main goal is to obstruct
unionization efforts. An alternative perspective is that a greater percentage of workers were unionized in the
past than wanted to be represented, partly because of coercive organizing tactics where union members refused
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to communicate with nonunion workers. Legislation prohibiting this tactic coincides with the beginning of the
decline in unionization.
It's probable that the number of union members won't increase if there is a glaring difference in the treatment of
unionized and non-unionized workers and if employers continue in penalizing those who indicate an interest in
joining a union. Employers must recognize that allowing unions to operate may improve worker morale, which
could result in higher output and, eventually, higher wages.
References:
Fossum, J. (2015). Labor Relations: Development, Structure, Process (12th ed.).
McGraw Hill
Katz, D. (2023). The decline of the American labor union. Retrieved from:
https://gisreportsonline.com/r/decline-american-union/
