Neoliberal Restructuring and U.S. Unions: Toward Social Movement Unionism?

Abstract

This paper identifies three causal pathways by which economic restructuring attributable to neoliberal policies has promoted a shift away from the previously dominant culture of business unionism, and toward social movement unionism, in the U.S. labor movement. These union types are located within a larger typology of voluntary, autonomous unions organized around two dimensions of union leadership culture: who union leaders think the labor movement should organize and/or represent and defend (inclusiveness); and how critical union leaders are of the economic and/or political status quo, and what kinds of alternatives (if any) they think the labor movement should fight to put in its place (criticalness). In the United States, neoliberal restructuring has shifted eight of ten variables that have important effects on union leadership culture toward the optimal conditions for social movement unionism. The links from neoliberal restructuring to changes in these conditions to shifts in the leadership cultures of some unions, and in the relative power of those unions, are traced over the period from 1979 to the present.