Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T20:37:21.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Union Decline

Can Labor Law Revisions Be Enacted and Have an Impact?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2022

William B. Gould IV
Affiliation:
Stanford University Law School
Get access

Summary

W. E. B. Du Bois said that race was the major issue of the twentieth century, and it may be that, based on the last forty years beginning at the end of that century, it is inequality as well as race that pose the major challenges of this century.1 The decline of organized labor first obtained the attention of commentators in the early 1960s and has galloped along at a crescendo-like pace during the past fifty years, accelerating during the Reagan era and continuing steadily into this century – and simultaneous with it the growing gap between productivity and pay, particularly since 1979 (productivity enjoying a 69.6 percent increase with hourly pay only increasing by 11.6 percent).2 As can be seen in Figure 8.1, Between 1973 and 2016, productivity grew six times faster than compensation. Initially, “[r]apid productivity growth brought rising prosperity to all, as Western societies rode the wave of expanding factory employment.”3

Type
Chapter
Information
For Labor To Build Upon
Wars, Depression and Pandemic
, pp. 137 - 175
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×