The union movement has changed considerably since American workers began observing Labor Day more than a century ago. Unions in the 1880s consisted of private-sector workers voluntarily banding together to fix horrendous working conditions. This is what most Americans envision when they think about unions: workers on the assembly line, or on a construction site, bargaining for safety or higher wages.
But half of today’s union movement works in government-sector jobs. A movement formed to defend blue-collar laborers now fights primarily to help white-collar workers expand government.
These transformations have been underway for the past half century. The problems that initially attracted members to unions vanished a long time ago. Federal law, for example, prohibits child labor and requires safe working conditions. Workers comp programs provide for those injured on the job. The forty-hour workweek has been standard since before any employees today started working.
As unions scored these protections, employee interest in unionizing waned. It has been many years since unions organized more new workers than they lost to unionized firms going out of business. In the 1950s, one out of every three workers belonged to a union. Today less than 7 percent of private-sector workers do.