US unions' continued decline masks new forms of worker activism

Michael Paarlberg
guardian.co.uk, Friday 25 January 2013 12.39 EST
America's long and steady march toward a fully disposable workforce continues apace, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week. Union membership is at its lowest point in nearly a century, with just 11.3% of all workers – the same level it was in 1916. To put this in proper historical perspective, union members are as rare today as they were at a time when being one could get you shot to death in a mining camp by the Colorado national guard.

Not that there is a great public outcry to return to the halcyon days of garment factory fires and tubercular slaughterhouses, or workers rallying to demand their bosses take away their pensions and bathroom breaks. Surveys show that most people wish they had more, not less input into their working conditions, and that a majority of non-union workers would choose to join a union, given the opportunity. Most do not get that opportunity, whether due to outright intimidation, or the ongoing shift of large parts of the economy toward part-time, temporary, low-wage and no-benefit jobs.