ABSTRACT
The most obvious commonality, shared among Britain, the USA and most other countries, is not only the magnitude but also the long-term duration of the decline in union membership. In the USA union density began declining from its peak of approximately one-third of the private-sector labour force in the mid-1950s and has continued up to the present time. At approximately 9 per cent today, private-sector union density is at about the same level that it was prior to the passage of the National Labour Relations Act in 1935. When the public sector unionization that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s is factored in, the overall rate of unionization in the USA now stands at just under 14 per cent. As in the UK under Margaret Thatcher’s governments, the most precipitous decline in union density in the USA came in the 1980s under the conservative regime of Ronald Reagan. However, the downward trends both predated the arrival and continued after the departure of Mrs Thatcher and Mr Reagan, under seemingly more labour-friendly governments.
