See also Business and the economy in the United
States; Demographics of the United States; Eco-
nomic Recovery Tax Act of 1981; Globalization; In-
come and wages in the United States; Inflation in the
United States;Nation at Risk, A; Reaganomics; Reces-
sions; Tax Reform Act of 1986; Unemployment in
Canada; Unions; Welfare.
Unions
Definition Organizations of workers who join
together to protect their common interests and
improve their wages and working conditions
From the 1930’s to the 1970’s, organized labor was a potent
economic and political force; by 1980, one-quarter of Amer-
ican workers belonged to a union. During the 1980’s, how-
ever, union membership fell rapidly as a result of economic
changes, outsourcing of jobs overseas, and an increasingly
hostile legal and political climate.
The 1980’s was a devastating decade for American
workers and their unions. Approximately eighty na-
tional unions existed in the United States during the
1980’s; roughly 84 percent were affiliated with the
AFL-CIO, and 16 percent were independent unions.
Overall union membership declined from 25 per-
cent of workers in 1980 to 16 percent in 1990. Some
of the largest and most powerful unions were partic-
ularly hard hit: Between 1978 and 1981 alone, the
steelworkers lost 827,000 members, autoworkers lost
659,000, and building trades unions lost more than
1 million. Only public-sector unionism held rela-
tively strong, averaging 37 percent of eligible work-
ers (not all public employees had the right to join
unions). By contrast, private-sector unionism plum-
meted to 11 percent in 1990, by far the lowest rate of
any Western industrialized country. In neighboring
Canada, 36 percent of the total workforce remained
unionized.
The causes of this decline are multifaceted. As the
1980’s began, the nation was still in the midst of the
worst economic downturn (1979-1981) since the
Great Depression of the 1930’s. Since the mid-1970’s,
U.S. corporations had faced increasing competition
from abroad. They sought to reduce costs by cutting
wages and moving their plants to nonunion areas
within the United States (primarily the South and
the West) or overseas. Industrial America, once the
heartland of blue-collar unionism, was decimated by
plant closings. Meanwhile, many employers adopted
aggressive antiunion policies, hiring new “union-
busting” firms at the first hint of union organizing in
their plants. Others sought to break unions with
which they had bargained for years, resulting in
some of the most bitterly fought strikes of the de-
cade. At the same time, unions faced a far chillier po-
litical, legal, and social climate. The National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB), the courts, the media, and
the executive branch all endorsed policies that in-
creasingly restricted the rights of American workers
to organize, bargain collectively, and strike.
Reagan and PATCO The policies of the Ronald
Reagan administration were pivotal in helping to es-
tablish this antiunion climate. On August 3, 1981,
nearly 13,000 federal air traffic controllers walked
off their jobs after months of unsuccessful negotia-
tions. For years, they had complained about obso-
lete equipment, chronic understaffing, mandatory
overtime, rotating shift schedules, safety problems,
and stress.
Within four hours, President Reagan declared
on national television that controllers who did not
return to work within forty-eight hours would lose
their jobs. Two days later, Reagan fired approxi-
mately 11,300 controllers. After breaking the strike,
he announced that the strikers would never be re-
hired for their former positions and the Professional
Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) would
be decertified (essentially destroyed). PATCO’s de-
mise represented the most stunning defeat for
unions in many decades. The president’s actions
foreshadowed the increasingly harsh political cli-
mate facing union organizers and heralded a de-
cade of dramatic defeats that reversed many of the
gains of the previous fifty years. Ironically, the politi-
cally conservative PATCO had been one of the few
unions to support Reagan. To many observers, Rea-
gan’s defeat of PATCO appeared to put a presiden-
tial seal of approval on hard-line antiunion strate-
gies.
Concessions and Givebacks Unions were on the
defensive throughout the decade. In almost every
strike and contract negotiation, union leaders con-
ceded to demands for ever larger givebacks and con-
cessions. During the first half of the 1980’s, workers
lost an estimated $500 billion to cuts in wages and
benefits. In 1982 alone, the seven largest steel com-
panies demanded $6 billion in concessions in thatThe Eighties in America Unions 1001