Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Thomas A. Kochan
Third Edition
Chapter 6
The Union Strategies and Structures for
Representing Workers
Unions need to decide-
1. To what extent they will seek to promote workers interests
through political channels versus collective bargaining.
2. Whether and how they will pursue political and legislative
activity.
3. How to represent workers interests through bargaining
and through daily activities at the workplace.
4. How much of their resources and energy to devote to
organizing new members.
5. How they will structure their internal organization to
represent their members.
No question is more central to unions than
membership.
B
A
A B
Economic Prosperity
The influence of legal and public policy
Union membership is low in states that have right-
to-work laws.
Twenty-two states have such laws, where it is illegal
to require employees to join unions as a condition of
employment
Union growth is strong in states that gave union
employees right to collective bargaining.
The passage of legislation is both partially a cause
and partially an effect of union growth.
Union Union
membership membership
B
A
A
B
A B
Right to
A B Right to work laws collective
bargaining
The passage of legislation is both partially a
cause and partially an effect of union growth.
American unions experienced a sizable decline after mid-
1940s and again lost its membership from 1980s.