There Is Power In a Union, Potentially, We Hope

Can U.S. Organized Labor Ever Be What It Was 50 Years Ago?

Organized labor used to be big in the United States. One out of every three workers was in a union, and manufacturing jobs were the backbone of labor. Today, manufacturing jobs continue to disappear, and unions have been in decline for decades. A lot has changed—but how much of the change has been inevitable? In advance of the Zócalo event “Can the Left Survive Without Labor?” we asked several scholars for their views on the following question: What would it take for organized labor in the U.S. to regain the …