Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the financial resources and performance of 53 of the largest national unions in the United States over the years between 2006 and 2019. Money plays an important role in the formation and maintenance of unions as organizations. Opponents of organized labor often seek to enact policies which would hinder the ability of unions to the raise money. Past research on union finances is sparse, notwithstanding the availability of relatively detailed data found in annual financial disclosure forms since the enactment of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act in 1959. The resource measures include assets, liabilities, receipts, and disbursements, aggregated across unions or reported individually by each separate national organization. Performance measures include operating capacity, and liquidity, survivability, stress, and efficiency.