^t nomic and political life, the American labor move;. :|^ ment seems to have become marginal. Conventional i! >Sj|analyses frame trade unionism in narratives of decline :^,j f^i and disappearance, pointing out that unions have i;V,v j^ ceased to grow and that union densities the propor,( $$/ tion of union membership to the paid labor force 4 ,:i *':*' are in a virtual free fall. In 1953 union members ac: v . r s counted for 38 percent of the private-sector labor force; today they make up less than 1 0 percent. Moreover, while in absolute numbers union membership is about what it was fifty years ago, the social composition of the labor movement has changed radically. Public employees, most of them white collar, account for some 40 percent of union membership, while union density among factory workers has slid from 40 to about 20 percent. These figures reflect postwar trends in the American economy. As the economy expanded, blue-collar employment advanced by inches and feet, while professional and technical jobs advanced by yards. Battered by a militant domestic labor movement and competition from Europe and Japan, American corporations used work reorganization, automation, and, later, computer-mediated machines to reduce costs by increasing productivity and eliminating labor. The goal was to preserve profits against rising wages. By the late 1 970s, these labor-saving technologies had begun to take their toll on manufacturing jobs. Between 1978 and 1993, the years of the most intense technological change and organizational consolidation, the number as well as the proportion of production workers declined precipitously. They accounted for 1 7 percent of the labor force in 1993, down from 34 percent in 1953. Over the same period, the numbers of professionals and managers rose; by 1993, they accounted for 9.6 percent of the workforce. Colleges and universities employed as many people in 1 990 as the steel and automotive industries combined. For the labor movement to recoup its losses, it must respond to these structural changes in the economy, expanding not only into the South and among the working poor, but also, and especially, among white-collar and professional employees. Knowledge has become crucial to American productivity, and producers of knowledge scientists, engineers, computer analysts, and researchers have become more important, particuz * <