Their activity centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members in disputes with management over violations of contract provisions.

[9] Of special concern are efforts by cities and states to reduce the pension obligations owed to unionized workers who retire in the future.

[15][16] Research suggests that rising income inequality in the United States is partially attributable to the decline of the labor movement and union membership,[17][18][19]: 1  and that this is not only a correlation.

During the late 1950s, the Landrum Griffin Act of 1959 passed in the wake of Congressional investigations of corruption and undemocratic internal politics in the Teamsters and other unions.

[31] By the 1970s, a rapidly increasing flow of imports (such as automobiles, steel and electronics from Germany and Japan, and clothing and shoes from Asia) undercut American producers.

[37][44] Republicans began to push through legislative blueprints to curb the power of public employee unions as well as eliminate business regulations.

In general they have shown robust growth rates, because wages and working conditions are set through negotiations with elected local and state officials.

)[48][49] A review conducted by the federal government on pay scale shows that employees in a labor union earn up to 33% more income than their nonunion counterparts, as well as having more job security, and safer and higher-quality work conditions.

The school's mission is to prepare leaders, inform national and international employment and labor policy, and improve working lives through undergraduate and graduate education.

[69] To help counter their steady decline in power, in the 1980s labor unions began to form coalitions locally, nationally, and globally with religious groups, social movements, politicians, and sometimes employers.

[74] A Pew Research Center poll from 2009 to 2010 found a drop in labor union support in the midst of The Great Recession[75] sitting at 41% favorable and 40% unfavorable.

It is not clear if this is a long-term trend or a function of a high unemployment rate which historically correlates with lower public approval of labor unions.

[91] Unions have enjoyed higher rates of success in locations where they have greater access to the workplace as an organizing space (as determined both by law and by employer acceptance), and where they benefit from a corporatist relationship to the state and are thus allowed to participate more directly in the official governance structure.

Moreover, the fluctuations of business cycles, particularly the rise and fall of unemployment rates and inflation, are also closely linked to changes in union density.

It outlawed mass picketing, secondary strikes of neutral employers, sit downs: in short, everything [CIO founder John L.] Lewis did in the 1930s.

[97] Bronfenbrenner claims that the federal government in the 1980s was largely responsible for giving employers the perception that they could engage in aggressive strategies to repress the formation of unions.

[98] He writes that the threat of production shifts reduces unions' bargaining power even if it does not eliminate them, and also claims that most of the effects of globalization on labor's strength are indirect.

They are most present in change towards a neoliberal political context that has promoted the deregulation and privatization of some industries and accepted increased employer flexibility in labor markets.

In response, part of the labor movement wanted to declare their open opposition to the agreement, and to push for NAFTA's rejection in Congress.

[104] Graubart writes that, despite unions' open disappointment with the outcome of this labor-side negotiation, labor activists, including the AFL–CIO have used the NAALC's citizen petition, containing a unique cross-border mechanism, to highlight ongoing political campaigns and struggles in their home countries.

[105][106] He claims that despite the relative weakness of the legal provisions themselves, the side-agreement has served a legitimizing functioning, giving certain social struggles a new kind of standing.

Unions believed that codes of conduct would be important first steps in creating written principles that a company would be compelled to comply with in later organizing contracts, but did not foresee the establishment of monitoring systems such as the Fair Labor Association.

These authors point out that such organizations are motivated by power, want to gain insider status politically and are accountable to a constituency that requires them to provide them with direct benefits.

Arguing against the idea that high union wages necessarily make manufacturing uncompetitive in a globalized economy was labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan.

Herod also pointed out that local strategies, such as the United Auto Workers' strike against General Motors in 1998, can sometimes effectively interrupt global production processes in ways that they could not before the advent of widespread market integration.

[112][better source needed] A 2018 study in the Economic History Review found that the rise of labor unions in the 1930s and 1940s was associated with a reduction in income inequality.

He acknowledges, however, that racism, attacks from corporate lobbyists who "made deep inroads to both parties," and a changing economy weakened unions and "prevented the labor movement from ever realizing its full potential.

"[117] The Hoover Institution think tank has asserted that the economic inequality argument made in favor of labor unions "misfires on several fronts.

The only way a union can provide gains for its members is to extract some fraction of the profits that firms enjoy when they hold monopoly positions."

"[118] Conversely, surveys of members of the American Economic Association in 2000, 2011, and 2021 showed consistent majorities disagreeing with the statement: "The increasing inequality in the distribution of income in the U.S. is due primarily to the benefits and pressures of a global economy.