Union Strength Dependent on a Non-competitive Environment

In his study ‘Labor Unions: A Corporatist Institution in a Competitive World’, Professor Michael L. Wachter of the University of Pennsylvania, chronicles the rise and fall of private sector unionism in the United States.

Wachter describes the conditions necessary for unions to thrive and how, in the absence of these factors, they languish. He traces the rise of the modern labor movement in the 1930s, its growth in post-depression America’s environment of corporatist policies—specifically President Roosevelt’s New Deal—and outlines the decline of private sector unions brought about by the re-emergence of robust competition in the nation’s economy during the latter part of the twentieth century.

Wachter’s study offers insights into how the labor climate of southwestern Pennsylvania acts as a constraint on the economy’s ability to grow and create jobs. Continue