ABSTRACT
Unemployment is always a threat to trade unions and their leaders. It poses a serious challenge to unions by driving down bargaining power against management. The organizational strategies that trade union leaders chose to respond to unemployment in New York City during the early 1990s suggest that these differences are rooted primarily in the exclusive and inclusive organizing strategies of trade unions. Government unemployment insurance has different levels of importance to union leaders, based on the exclusiveness or inclusiveness of their unions. Despite the union’s established methods for dealing with unemployment, the recession of the 1990s revealed inequities in Local 3’s treatment of the unemployed. Local 3’s leadership came under severe criticism from members and non-members who could not find jobs in the industry; most union critics were women and minority workers ordinarily excluded from the union. The “Jobs Now!” march and rally were organized by building trades unions’ leaders who aligned with construction contractors.
