only two women and two minorities on the thirty-
five-member board.
Increasingly, union leaders were perceived as a
clique of mostly middle-aged white men, even though
women and minorities represented the fastest-
growing sectors of the labor movement. Grassroots
discontent mounted and was channeled into the
formation of groups such as Teamsters for a Demo-
cratic Union, the autoworkers’ New Directions Cau-
cus, Black Workers for Justice, Asian Pacific Ameri-
can Labor Alliance, Jobs with Justice, and the Gay
and Lesbian Labor Activist Network. Throughout
the 1980’s, insurgents challenged union bureau-
crats on issues relating to foreign policy, conces-
sions, corruption, lack of internal democracy, fail-
ure to organize new members, racism, and sexism.
These reform efforts culminated in 1995 with the
election of John Sweeney as president of the AFL-
CIO on a “new voice” slate that defeated all of the
federation’s top officers. Sweeney’s victory repre-
sented the first successful challenge to an AFL-CIO
president in more than one hundred years.
Successes and Failures Although successful cam-
paigns were few and far between during the 1980’s,
they were significant in pointing the way toward new
strategies and forms of organizing. In many cases,
“rank-and-file” or local union activists came into bit-
ter conflict with their more conservative national
union leadership. The most successful struggles uti-
lized creative tactics and welcomed broad commu-
nity support. Victories (full and partial) included
the 1984 United Mine Workers strike; the 1985-1987
strike of Watsonville cannery workers in Salinas Val-
ley, California; the Justice for Janitors campaign that
began in Los Angeles in 1985; and successful union
organizing drives among clerical and technical staff
at Yale and Harvard Universities. Both university
campaigns lasted three years and involved civil dis-
obedience, community rallies, student and faculty
support, and office shutdowns. During the 1989
United Mine Workers strike against the Pittston Coal
Company, workers established a “camp solidarity”
program whereby the “Daughters of Mother Jones”
trained thousands in civil disobedience. In eleven
states, forty thousand miners staged wildcat solidar-
ity strikes while others occupied a plant. Unions also
lobbied successfully for legislation to provide some
severance pay and retraining programs for workers
laid off as a result of plant closings.
Among the most significant union defeats were
the 1983 Phelps Dodge Mining Company copper
miners’ strike and the 1985 Hormel meatpackers’
strike. Both involved the use of National Guard
troops. Equally representative of the decade’s strug-
gles was the stunning defeat of the United Auto
Workers’ effort to unionize a Nissan plant in Tennes-
see in 1989. When the election results were an-
nounced, antiunion workers cheered and danced in
the street, carrying banners that read “Union Free
and Proud.”Impact During the 1980’s, the rights of American
workers to organize, bargain collectively, and strike
were seriously eroded. The NLRB’s conservative rul-
ings created enduring legal precedents. Likewise,
employers’ use of permanent replacement workers
and other union-busting tactics continued long after
the decade’s end.
Nearly all studies reveal that unionized workers
receive higher wages and better benefits than their
nonunionized peers. The loss of union jobs contrib-
uted to the shrinking of the American middle class.
After 1980, a declining number of workers enjoyed
benefits such as full medical coverage, guaranteed
retirement plans, and vacation and sick pay. Be-
tween 1980 and 1990, more than 10 million new jobs
were created that paid less than thirteen thousand
dollars per year, while only 1.6 million new jobs were
created that paid more than twenty-seven thousand
dollars (in year 2000 dollars). Whereas between
1947 and 1978, real hourly wages grew 80 percent
(adjusted for inflation) and workers saw their stan-
dard of living steadily improve, during the 1980’s
real hourly wages declined. Family income did rise
slightly after 1986, but only because more wives
were working outside the home and both men and
women were working longer hours. Under attack
from all sides, American unions, which had once en-
joyed great power, influence, and prestige, lost the
leading role they had played in the nation’s econ-
omy and, at the same time, lost their ability to lift a
significant portion of America’s blue-collar and in-
dustrial workers into the ranks of the middle class.Further Reading
Babson, Steve.The Unfinished Struggle: Turning Points
in American Labor, 1877-Present. Lanham, Md.:
Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Chapter 5, “At the
Crossroads,” offers a thoughtful examination of1004 Unions The Eighties in America