The Role of Unions in US and Its Future
The role of Unions in US and the future of Union movement given the social, political and economic conditions in US.
I will discuss the key debates, conflict or struggle in the contemporary labor movement taking in to account multiple competing perspectives. I will address in this article who are the main players on each side of labor movement, how powerful the payers are, what position the player’s have taken, what strategies and why they have used such strategies to counter the opponent players, are rival organizations sticking together or splintering, compromising or confronting, which side is winning and why they are winning and what are the possible prospects for the future of labor movement in the US.
Major players on each side of the labor movement in US
In US the major players on each side of the labor movement are the employers, employer associations, employees and trade Unions and Trade Union bodies such as AFL-CIO, media, government, community groups and public at large.
Power of each side of the contemporary labor movement
In US employers and employers Associations are powerful groups on the opposite side of the labor movement. This is because US is a free market economy and private enterprise plays a major role in economic affairs and role government is minimal compared to other industrialized nations and they have the power to make decisions regarding the level of investment and the power to withdraw capital and in a greater degree have the power to hire and fire workers in US compared to other capitalist countries. This affects the labor
movement influences in the workplace and its effectiveness in achieving its goals and makes them to compromise on labor issues with employers. In addition some unions in US only care about economic issues and some unions are politically active. This gives the US employers to exert more bargaining power in some sectors of Industry. As well employers in US in the contemporary labor market prefer non-union labor compared to union labor and this restrict the ability of unions to organize in these industry sectors particularly in the global market competitive environment which influences the company to have a flexible workforce to be competitive in the world market and give opportunities to set factories in other countries and give the employers more power over the unions.
In addition in US the percentage of labor unionized is very low compared to other industrialized countries and it is coming down, This also gives the employers power to attract staff from non-union labor. As discussed above employers and employer Association have considerable power to shape the trade union practice and its influence on the theories of labor movement from collective bargaining to a more compromising labor practices in the workplace at least in some industries.
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