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by dehrmann
1157 days ago
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> unions have been gutted heavily in the US compared to where they were a century ago. The red line isn't normalized by workforce size, but it suggests the big gains (five-day work week, 8-hour workday) were before unions really became powerful. Unionization was only a 15-year trend, then it stalled-out. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/United_S... |
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In the 19th century, Labor unions functioned more like activist group then unions in the modern sense. There were quite a few of them, they often included members across businesses and even industries (of these IWW still exists and still functions like this). There were no protections for collective bargaining so there was no need for unions to mass enroll whole businesses, what was important was organizing for every event, and build a solidarity across workers, rather then unionizing whole workplaces. The union’s job was to organize direct action and build up solidarity around them. A successful strike had union members and non-members alike striking in solidarity. A very successful strike crossed many and diverse workplaces. As you can imagine these often turned violent when scabs refused to participate (as they were allowed to), or when unions with conflicting ideologies were competing for members and propaganda.
This changed in the new deal era, particular when the Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act; NLRA) was enacted in 1935. And you can see the uptake in union memberships on your graph. This act legalized collective action and protected workers in labor unions. This formed the basis unions as we know them today. From then on it became more important to organize each workplace, rather than each direct action, and the protections would only apply for members, not participants. So memberships suddenly became more important than participation.
Comparing memberships between these two eras is effectively comparing apples to oranges. While today membership count is an indicator of effectiveness, this was far from truth prior to the New Deal.