nt workers employed by specific firms through the process of certification. Certification is the formal declaration by a government labor relations board that a specific labor union is the recognized bargaining agent for a specific group of workers at a specific employing firm. This formal certification is typically made following the conduct of a certification election that is supervised by the NLRB.
Labor union membership in the United States has been on the decline for the better part of three decades, with unionized workers accounting for only approximately 12.4 percent of the private sector workforce and 16.5 percent of the combined private sector and public sector workforce (McDonald, 1992, pp. 13-30). In 1950, more than 40 percent of the total work force was unionized, and more than one-half of the non-supervisory workers in non-farm establishments were union members. One source of lost membership is decertification.
Decertification is provided for under labor union law in the United States, and the process has gained considerable ground in the United States since 1970, as a result of the availability of lower-wage, non-union labor in the southern states and a stronger growth in high-tech industries. Many of the decertification actions in the United States are supported (some suspect instigated) by employers, with the assistance of highly trained and educated (and highly paid) consultants. Employer support for decertification actions in the United States is strictly regulated, and blatant attempts to pay lower wages through decertification (as a sort of a bribe to keep jobs) has not been a part of the employer tactics in the United States (this type of bribe has been used effectively, however, by some employers in the negotiation of concessions from labor unions representing their employees).
While labor organization has been present in American society from almost the beginning of nationhood, unions were repress...