AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT

American labor movement

[Name of the Institute]

American labor movement

Introduction

The Americans call the density of the labor movement, that is to say the rate of union is to the American situation because it is extremely low in the range of from 13 to 14% of all employees, and 9% for the private sector. Today, a majority of union members are naturally more workers, but people who work in public service (Wheeler, 2002). No longer are those who have formed the basis of trade unionism in the United States. So in terms of numbers, and given everything that is happening in the world due to globalization, the situation of employees likely to unionize seems serious. It is quite clear that unions have the greatest difficulty in recruiting new members, and at the same time they are confronted with the forces which it is very difficult to resist. Large Corporation decide unilaterally in 30 years to relocate, and even where workers were beaten, they finally lost (Beard, 1969). One can observe that new effects of globalization which will give them two examples, which one consider extremely dangerous.

It was read it some time ago that, General Motors, who now works for a large part in Mexico and in the manner of Japanese lean, had a factory in the United States still need labor because that there was an increased demand at a particular time. What did they do? They brought in the United States for three months of Mexican workers in the factory relocated; they paid at the rate of labor in Mexico (Brody, 1985). So it's two way relocation. The other example, it was also read recently that, a former West Coast dock worker who has written “The Unmaking of the American Working Class,” for the work of Dockers in Oakland. This is a major port where cargo ships arrive loaded with containers. These are the Dockers in Oakland, grouped in the Dockers' union, which ensure the loading and unloading.

In 2002, has seen a huge cargo ship with containers, and even before the containers were unloaded, one saw off the cargo of Chinese, the boat came from China, who have installed cranes, who does the work of unloading - this also illegally, since the work was normally reserved for the West Coast dockworkers. These, although they asked for sanctions, have finally got there. As for Chinese workers, they were paid $ 4 per day. The minimum hourly wage is $ 5.15 U.S. Unions have lost a lot of members that they have failed to replace.

American Labor Movement and National Labor Relations Board

There are many places signs that, locally, there are social movements related to working conditions, which may be promising. It seems that especially when there is even a revival of activism, including a rise of militancy among immigrant workers, especially in services (Dolgoff, 1990). It also has a number of notable examples of large organizing campaigns, the janitors on the West Coast - the rest that California is one of the laboratories ...