Union Decline and the Political Demands of Organized Labor

Abstract

With the acceleration in the rate of U.S. union membership decline since 1970, organized labor has issued legislative demands for redistributing wealth and for protecting unions as organizations. Yet research on labor political action has de-emphasized not only the development of labor's legislative agenda, but also the forces, such as socioeconomic status and class conflict, which cause diverse occupational and industrial sectors of unions to issue different legislative demands. Analysis of resolutions passed at the 1981-87 AFL-CIO conventions shows that declining and/or predominantly white, male unions in construction and manufacturing tended to issue organizational legislative demands, while growing, service-industry unions with large minority and women memberships tended to issue redistributive legislative demands. The findings suggest that unevenness in class conflict across unions affects which unions issue organizational demands and that inter-union diversity in socioeconomic status affects which unions issue redistributive demands.