Überblick
"(...) Not so long ago, unions and collective bargaining touched the lives of virtually all Americans. Unions negotiated with management the wages and working conditions of a largeproportion of the US work force and influenced the wages and conditions of many nonunion workers and firms as well. In 1955, when the two major US labor federations, the American
Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) merged to form a single federation , the AFL-CIO, about 38% of workers in the private sector were covered by collective contracts. If you were not a union member, someone in your family or someone on the street where you lived was a member. If you managed a large firm, some part of your firm dealt with unionized workers. If your firm was nonunion and wished to remain so you paid
close attention to collective agreements between unions and other firms. Matching negotiated improvements in wages and benefits could keep your employees happy and nonunion. The labor scene in 2011 was markedly different than in the 1950s and 1960s. Unions and collective bargaining covered a small and declining share of private sector workers. In
2011 just 6.9 percent of private sector workers were in unions, the smallest percentage since 1900. In some parts of the country, such as North Carolina, Tennessee, or South Dakota, the proportion of private sector workers unionized was 3% or less and falling. (...)"