The history of labor unions in the twentieth century is the history of the rise and fall of an American institution. Unionism moved from the fringe position it occupied in the nineteenth century to a central position in the American economy, and more recently it has been noted that unionism has fallen on hard times, with waning membership, loss of political power, and changes in law that have undercut the movement in a variety of ways. An analysis of the development of the labor union movement in this century should point to the primary reason or reasons leading to change in union density, first contributing to the increasing density of union membership and then to the lessening of that density in recent years.
Unionism started in the nineteenth century with the coming of the industrial revolution and the expansion of the United States both in terms of territory and economic structure. The government also became involved in labor matters at that time, and government involvement in labor relations has been varied in form over the history of the country. In the nineteenth century, the government often sided with management as a matter of course, protecting the rights of owners and refusing to admit that the labor force had any right to organize for the protection of its rights. After a century of struggle over this issue, Congress settled the matter with the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, in 1935. The underlying conception of the Wagner Act was affirmed in subsequent legislation, notably the Taft-Hartley Act of 1949 and the Landrum-Griffin changes of 1959. Morris (1987) writes: "Although there may be room for wide debate as to the extent of the influence which labor legislation has on shaping the contours of a nation's industrial relations system, it cannot be denied that the legislative impact in the United states has been substantial" (xiii). The National Labor Relations Board developed out of ...