This article examines the causes of the different historical trajectories of US union membership in the private and public sectors, a topic relevant for understanding the link between unions and industrial democracy. The article focuses on the different legal contexts shaping membership in these two sectors, especially the role of right-to-work (RTW) and public sector collective bargaining (PSCB) laws. Using state-level data from 1984 to 2019, the study finds that RTW laws decrease, and PSCB laws increase union membership in both sectors, suggesting cross-over effects. The authors conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the prospects of expanding economic and industrial democracy.
AaronBGrodinJRSternJL (eds) (1979) Public-Sector Bargaining. Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs.
2.
AshenfelterOPencavelJH (1969) American trade union growth, 1900–1960. Quarterly Journal of Economics83: 434–448.
3.
BaccaroLBenassiCMeardiG (2019) Theoretical and empirical links between trade unions and democracy. Economic and Industrial Democracy40: 3–19.
4.
BainGSElsheikhF (1976) Union Growth and the Business Cycle. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
5.
BeckN (1991) Comparing dynamic specifications: The case of presidential approval. Political Analysis3: 51–87.
6.
BeckNKatzJN (1995) What to do (and not to do) with time-series cross-section data. American Political Science Review89: 634–647.
7.
BennettJTKaufmanBE (2002) The Future of Private Sector Unionism in the United States. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
8.
BensmanD (2014) Misclassification: Workers in the borderland. Journal of Self-Governance and Management Economics2: 7–25.
9.
BernsteinI (1960) The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920–1933. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Co.
10.
BraceP (1993) State Government and Economic Performance. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
11.
BradyD (2007) Institutional, economic or solidaristic? Assessing explanations for unionization across affluent democracies. Work and Occupations34: 67–101.
12.
BradyDWallaceM (2000) Spatialization, foreign direct investment, and labor outcomes in the American states, 1978–1996. Social Forces79: 67–105.
13.
BronfenbrennerKJuravichT (1995) The impact of employer opposition on union certification win rates: A private/public sector comparison. Working Paper #113. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.
14.
ChaisonG (2012) The New Collective Bargaining. New York: Springer.
15.
ClarkIHunterJPickfordRFearnall-WilliamsH (2020) How do licensing regimes limit worker interests? Evidence from informal employment in Britain. Economic and Industrial Democracy. Epub ahead of print 17February2020. DOI: 0143831X20903095.
16.
ClawsonD (2003) The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
17.
ClawsonDClawsonMA (1999) What has happened to the U.S. labor movement? Union decline and renewal. Annual Review of Sociology25: 95–119.
18.
De BoefSKeeleL (2008) Taking time seriously. American Journal of Political Science52: 184–200.
19.
DevinatzVG (2011) The continuing controversy over right-to-work laws in the early twenty-first century. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal23: 287–293.
20.
DixonM (2007) Limiting labor: Business political mobilization and union setback in the states. The Journal of Policy History19: 313–344.
21.
DixonM (2012) Anti-unionism and right-to-work in the American south. In: GriffinLHarrisP (eds) The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, pp. 66–71.
22.
EdwardsPK (1981) Strikes in the United States, 1881–1974. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
23.
EllwoodDTFineG (1987) The impact of right-to-work laws on union organizing. Journal of Political Economy95: 250–273.
24.
FreemanRB (1986) Unionism comes to the public sector. Journal of Economic Literature24: 41–86.
25.
FreemanRB (1988) Contraction and expansion: The divergence of private sector and public sector unionism in the United States. Journal of Economic Perspectives2: 63–88.
26.
FreemanRBIchniowskiC (eds) (1988) When Public Sector Workers Unionize. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
27.
FreemanRBVallettaR (1988) The effects of public sector labor laws on labor market institutions and outcomes. In: FreemanRBIchniowskiC (eds) When Public Sector Workers Unionize. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 81–106.
28.
GoldfieldM (1987) The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
29.
GoldfieldMBromsenA (2013) The changing landscape of US unions in historical and comparative perspective. Annual Review of Political Science16: 231–257.
30.
Gumbrell-McCormickRHymanR (2019) Democracy in trade unions, democracy through trade unions?Economic and Industrial Democracy40: 91–110.
31.
HalabyCN (2004) Panel models in sociological research: Theory into practice. Annual Review of Sociology30: 507–544.
32.
HarveyD (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
33.
HirschBTMacphersonDA (2020) Union membership and coverage database from the CPS. Available at: www.unionstats.com/
34.
HoglerRL (2015) The End of American Labor Unions. Santa Monica, CA: Praeger.
35.
HolmesTJ (1998) The effect of state policies on the location of manufacturing: Evidence from state borders. Journal of Political Economy106: 667–705.
36.
HuQHaninkDM (2018) Declining union contract coverage and increasing income inequality in U.S. metropolitan areas. The Professional Geographer70: 453–462.
37.
HydeAVachonTEWallaceM (2018) Financialization, income inequality, and redistribution in 18 affluent democracies, 1981–2011. Social Currents5: 193–211.
38.
HymanR (1973) Marxism and the Sociology of Trade Unionism. London: Pluto Press.
39.
JacobsDDirlamJC (2016) Politics and economic stratification: Power resources and income inequality in the US states. American Journal of Sociology122: 469–500.
40.
JacobsDDixonM (2010) Political partisanship, race, and union strength from 1970 to 2000: A pooled time-series analysis. Social Science Research39: 1059–1072.
41.
JacobsDMyersL (2014) Union strength, neoliberalism, and inequality: Contingent political analyses of U.S. income differences since 1950. American Sociological Review79: 752–774.
42.
JohnstonP (1994) Success While Others Fail: Social Movement Unionism and the Public Workplace. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
43.
JonesEB (1992) Private sector union decline and structural employment change, 1970–1988. Journal of Labor Research13: 257–272.
44.
KellyJ (1998) Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves. London: Routledge.
45.
KochanTAYangDKimballWTKellyEL (2019) Worker voice in America: Is there a gap between what workers expect and what they experience?Industrial and Labor Relations Review7: 23–38.
46.
KollmeyerC (2018) Trade union decline, deindustrialization, and rising income inequality in the United States, 1947 to 2015. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility57: 1–10.
47.
KollmeyerCPetersJ (2019) Financialization and the decline of organized labor: A study of 18 advanced capitalist countries, 1970–2012. Social Forces98: 1–30.
48.
KorpiW (1983) The Democratic Class Struggle. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
49.
KorpiW (1985) Power resources approach vs. action and conflict. Sociological Theory3: 31–45.
50.
KrippnerGR (2005) The financialization of the American economy. Socio-Economic Review3: 173–208.
51.
McAleveyJ (2016) No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age. New York: Oxford University Press.
52.
McCartinJA (2006) Bringing the state’s workers in: Time to rectify an imbalanced US labor historiography. Labor History47: 73–94.
53.
MannM (1973) Class and Consciousness Among the Western Working Class. London: Macmillan.
54.
MinchinT (2006) Fighting against the Odds. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
MoodyK (1988) An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism. Brooklyn, NY: Verso.
57.
MooreWJ (1998) The determinants and effects of right-to-work laws: A review of the recent literature. Journal of Labor Research19: 445–469.
58.
PereaJF (2011) The echoes of slavery: Recognizing the racist origins of the agricultural and domestic worker exclusion from the National Labor Relations Act. Ohio State Law Journal72: 95–138.
59.
PivenFFClowardR (1977) Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Random House.
60.
RederMW (1988) The rise and fall of unions: The public sector and the private. The Journal of Economic Perspectives2: 89–110.
61.
RosenfeldJ (2014) What Unions No Longer Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
62.
RubinBAGriffinLJWallaceM (1983) ‘Provided only that their voice was strong’: Insurgency and organization of American labor from NRA to Taft–Hartley. Work and Occupations10: 325–347.
63.
SchlesingerAM (1957) The Age of Roosevelt, Vol. I: The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919–1933. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.
64.
ScruggsLLangeP (2002) Where have all the members gone? Globalization, institutions, and union density. Journal of Politics64: 126–153.
65.
ShafferR (2002) Where are the organized public employees? The absence of public employee unionism from U.S. history textbooks, and why it matters. Labor History43: 315–334.
66.
SlaterJE (2004) Public Workers: Government Employee Unions, the Law, and the State, 1900–1962. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.
67.
SneidermanMFascioneS (2018) Going on offense during challenging times. New Labor Forum27: 54–62.
Tomaskovic-DeveyDLinK-H (2011) Income dynamics, economic rents, and the financialization of the U.S. economy. American Sociological Review76: 538–559.
70.
TopeDJacobsD (2009) The politics of union decline: The contingent determinants of union recognition elections and victories. American Sociological Review74: 842–864.
71.
VachonTEWallaceM (2013) Globalization, labor market transformation, and union decline in U.S. metropolitan areas. Labor Studies Journal38: 229–255.
72.
VachonTEWallaceM (2018) Red state, blue state: Neoliberalism, politics and public sector union membership in the US states. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society11: 519–539.
73.
VachonTEWallaceMHydeA (2016) Union decline in a neoliberal age: Globalization, financialization, European integration, and union density in 18 affluent democracies. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World2: 1–22.
74.
VolschoTWKellyNJ (2012) The rise of the super-rich: Power resources, taxes, financial markets, and the dynamics of the top 1 percent, 1949 to 2008. American Sociological Review77: 679–699.
75.
WalkerAN (2014) Labor’s enduring divide: The distinct path of public sector unions in the United States. Studies in American Political Development28: 175–200.
76.
WalkerAN (2020) Divided Unions: The Wagner Act, Federalism and Organized Labor. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
77.
WallaceM (1989) Aggressive economism, defensive control: Contours of American labour militancy, 1947–1981. Economic and Industrial Democracy10: 7–34.
78.
WallaceMFullertonASGurbuzM (2009) Union organizing effort and success in the U.S. 1948–2004. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility27: 13–34.
WesternB (1995) A comparative study of working-class disorganization: Union decline in eighteen advanced capitalist countries. American Sociological Review60: 179–201.
81.
WesternB (1997) Between Class and Market: Postwar Unionization in the Capitalist Democracies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
82.
WrightEORogersJ (2015) American Society: How It Really Works. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
