ABSTRACT
A Wall Street Journal editorial decrying the role of Big Labor in shaping the Obama administration's domestic policy expressed worry that unions' outsize clout would force higher taxes on investment income. Academics have long debated whether high levels of unionization are a net good when it comes to global competitiveness or overall economic performance. But fewer dispute that unions have been a historically positive force in bolstering the economic prospects of union members themselves. The transformation to a post-industrial economy hit union workers in these industries hard, as jobs become increasingly vulnerable to outsourcing, deskilling, and technological innovations rendering many positions redundant. While the causes of organized labor's decades-long decline in the private sector are well known, the broad consequences are not. Unionization has always been unevenly spread across demographic groups. Hispanic immigrant citizens and Hispanic immigrants who have lived in the United States for many years are also joining unions at higher rates than native-born Whites.
