Changing Landscape Unions at Inception Unions, Members

Changing Landscape Unions at inception unions, members consisted "blue-collar" workers concentrated manufacturing sector. Today, 35% union members remain sector, requires unions expand manufacturing broaden membership ranks. Noting that the union rate has significantly dropped in the last 30 years is almost a truism. Statistics, however, are the best instruments to make this argument: the union membership rate has dropped to 12.4% in 2008 from 20.1% in 1983 (Butcher, 2009). The drop comes, overall, from the significant decrease of unionization in the manufacturing sector, with a direct impact on the private sector overall.

While some of the traditional public sectors still have a big unionization rate (teachers, police etc.), today only one in ten workers from the manufacturing industry are still part of a union. In 1983, this proportion was 30% (Butcher, 2009). This is not necessarily a trend that is noticeable only in the U.S. Other developed countries, including, for example, Australia, have followed similar developments (Leigh, 2005). The reasons for this include the increasing competitiveness on the labor market in a globalized economy.

The shifting of jobs to countries with lower wages and the outsourcing trend that has dominated the manufacturing industry in the last three decades has diminished the powers that unions have in bargaining for the workers' wages. With a diminished power, unions had a greater difficulty in attracting new members, given that the primary tool was the lobbying power that unions had. With this in mind, reforms that unions should consider to broaden their appeal to the workplace environment should build on the strengths they still have.

These include the litigation capacities, as well as the portfolio of instruments that make unions viable entities in lobbying for preferred legislation (Ortiz, 2012). In addition, unions should consider a public relations campaign that could shift the public's perception from negatively judging the role of unions to understanding the necessity of unions in protecting workers' rights in their relationship with the employers and management. Touching very little on these points, the unions still remain powerful blocks, in many cases also benefiting from important sources of finance.

This package can still be successfully used in negotiations with state and federal legislation on different laws that have an impact on the workers. At the same time, successful lobbying will create a new profile for unions, shifting the perception from negotiation with employers to negotiations in a larger framework, in which unions aim to improve the overall framework in which workers live. As for litigation, this is again a translation of the financial power that unions still have.

An advantage for being part of the union could be the fact that unions could help with litigation costs, if the relationship between the worker and the employer reaches that particular situation. The idea is, of course, that powerful litigation is still an important tool that workers can use when their rights are not respected. With both lobbying and litigation, the idea is that unions can still provide things that workers need in their.