International comparisons of labor unions

Unions have been compared across countries by growth and decline patterns, by violence levels, and by kinds of political activity.

Growth/Decline of unions compared

In the mid-1950s, 36% of the United States labor force was unionized. Even at America's union peak in the 1950s, union membership was lower in the United States than in almost all comparable countries. By 1989 that figure had dropped to about 16%, the lowest percentage of any developed democracy except France.

For comparison, here are some percentages for other developed democracies, published in 1990:

*95% in Sweden and Denmark.
*85% in Finland
*Over 60% in Norway and Austria
*Over 50% in Australia, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
*Over 40% in West Germany and Italy.ref|WSJ

In 1987 United States unionization was 37 points below the average of seventeen countries surveyed, down from 17 points below average in 1970.ref|WSJ2

Between 1970 and 1987, union membership declined in only three other countries:
*Austria, by 3%,
*Japan, by 7%, and the
*Netherlands, by 4%.

In the United States, union membership had declined by 14%.ref|WAR

In 2004, 12.5% of U.S. wage and salary workers were union members. 36% of government workers were union members, but only 8% of workers in private-sector industries were.ref|BLS

The most unionized sectors of the economy have had the greatest decline in union membership:

From 1953 to the late 1980s:
*Construction from 84% to 22%
*Manufacturing from 42% to 25%
*Mining from 65% to 15%
*Transportation from 80% to 37%ref|troy

From 1971 to the late 1980s, there was a 10% drop in union membership in the U.S. public sector and a 42% drop in union membership in the U.S. private sector.ref|troy2 For comparison, there was:

*no drop in union membership in the private sector in Sweden,
*2% in Canada,
*3% in Norway,
*6% in West Germany,
*7% in Switzerland,
*9% in Austria,
*14% in the United Kingdom,
*15% in Italy.ref|sexton

Violence in labor disputes compared

Between 1877 and 1968, 700 people have been killed in American labor disputes.ref|sexton2

In the 1890s, roughly two American workers were killed and 140 injured for every 100,000 strikers.

In the 1890s in France, three French workers were injured for every 100,000 strikers.

In the 1890s only 70 French strikers were arrested per 100,000. For the United States, national arrest rates are simply impossible to compile. In Illinois, the arrest rate for the latter half of the 1890s decade was at least 700 per 100,000 strikers, or ten times that of France; in New York for that decade it was at least 400.

Between 1902 and 1904 in America "(the three years between 1880 and 1920 for which there are the most detailed and reliable figures)", at least 198 people were killed, 1966 workers were injured. One worker was killed and 1009 were injured for every 100,000 strikers.ref|harvard

Between 1877 and 1968, American state and federal troops intervened in labor disputes more than 160 times, almost invariably on behalf of employers.ref|sexton3 Business was disrupted, usually by strikes, on 22,793 occasions between 1875 and 1900.For some examples of the violence both by and against U.S. union members in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, see:
* Centralia Massacre
* Everett massacre
* Great Railroad Strike of 1922
* Haymarket Riot
* Homestead Strike
* Italian Hall Disaster
* Lawrence textile strike
* Ludlow massacre
* Pinkerton National Detective Agency
* Pullman Strike
* Timeline of Labor unions in the United States
* Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914

ee also

*Union affiliation by U.S. state

Notes

# cite journal | author= Blanchflower, David and Richard B. Freeman | title= Going Different Ways: Unionism in the U.S. and Other Advanced O.E.C.D. Countries | journal= National Bureau of Economic Research | month= April | year= 1990 | volume=Working paper number 3342 | issue= | pages= 6, 42 | url= http://www.nber.org/papers/w3342
# "ibid."
# cite book | author=Sexton, Patricia Cayo| title=The War on Labor and the Left: Understanding America's Unique Conservatism | publisher= Westview Press | year= 1992 | id=ISBN 0-8133-1063-6, p. 13
# Bureau of Labor Statistics. [http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm Union Members Summary] January 27, 2005
# cite journal | author=Troy, Leo S.M. Lipset Editor| title=The Rise and Fall of American Trade Unions: The Labor Movement from FDR to RR | journal= Unions in Transition: Entering the Second Century, Institute of Contemporary Studies| year= 1986| volume= | issue= | pages= 87 | url= ; cite journal | author=Troy, Leo | title=New Data on Workers Belonging to Unions, 1986 | journal= Monthly Labor Review | month= May | year= 1987 | volume=| issue= | pages= 36 | url=
# cite journal | author= Troy, Leo | title=Is the U.S. Unique in the Decline of Private Sector Unionism | journal= Journal of Labor Research | year= Spring 1990 | volume=11:2 | issue= | pages= 135| url=
# Sexton, p. 14
# Sexton, p. 55; Taft, Philip and Philip Ross, "American Labor Violence: Its Causes, Character, and Outcome", in Hugh D. Graham and Ted R. Gurr, editors, "The History of Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives"; Frederick A. Praeger publisher, 1969, ASIN: B00005W22X, p. 380 The paper begins with the assertion that "the United States has experienced more frequent and bloody labor violence than any other industrialized nation." Gitelman argues that this may be true, but that it is not supported by the evidence presented, which focuses only on America labor violence exclusively. cite journal | author=Gitelman, H.M. | title=Perspectives on American Industrial Violence | journal=The Business History Review | year= Spring 1973| volume=Vol. 47 No. 1 | issue= | pages= p 2 | url= http://www.hbs.edu/bhr/archives/abstracts/vol47.html
# cite journal | author=Forbath, William E. | title=Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement | journal=102 Harvard Law Review 1111 | month=April | year=1989 | volume= | issue= | pages= 1186| url= ; cite book | author= | title=An introduction to the study of organized labor in America | publisher=Macmillan | year=1916 | id=ASIN: B0008B9BBK p. 189; G. Friedman, The State and the Making of a Working Class: The United States and France 20 (paper prepared for Social Science History Conference, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 1986) (on file at Harvard Law School Library); United States Commissioner of Labor, Report on Strikes and Lockouts. H.R. DOC. No. 882, 59th Cong., 2d Sess. (1906) (reporting results of investigation of strikes and lockouts 1901-1905, with summaries from 1881 to 1905)
# Sexton, p. 55

References

* Thomas Blanke. " Collective Bargaining Wages in Comparative Perspective: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, And the United Kingdom" (Bulletin of Comparative Labor Relations) by (Jul 28, 2005)
*
* Joan Campbell; "European Labor Unions" Greenwood Press, 1992
* Walter Galenson, ed, " Comparative Labor Movements" (1968)
* Adolf Fox Sturmthal. "Comparative labor movements: ideological roots and institutional development" (1972)