I will discuss the key debates, conflict or struggle in the contemporary labor movement taking in to account multiple competing perspectives. I will address in this article who are the main players on each side of labor movement, how powerful the payers are, what position the player's have taken, what strategies and why they have used such strategies to counter the opponent players, are rival organizations sticking together or splintering, compromising or confronting, which side is winning and why they are winning and what are the possible prospects for the future of labor movement in the US.
Major players on each side of the labor movement in US
In US the major players on each side of the labor movement are the employers, employer associations, employees and trade Unions and Trade Union bodies such as AFL-CIO, media, government, community groups and public at large.
Power of each side of the contemporary labor movement
In US employers and employers Associations are powerful groups on the opposite side of the labor movement. This is because US is a free market economy and private enterprise plays a major role in economic affairs and role government is minimal compared to other industrialized nations and they have the power to make decisions regarding the level of investment and the power to withdraw capital and in a greater degree have the power to hire and fire workers in US compared to other capitalist countries. This affects the labor
movement influences in the workplace and its effectiveness in achieving its goals and makes them to compromise on labor issues with employers. In addition some unions in US only care about economic issues and some unions are politically active. This gives the US employers to exert more bargaining power in some sectors of Industry. As well employers in US in the contemporary labor market prefer non-union labor compared to union labor and this restrict the ability of unions to organize in these industry sectors particularly in the global market competitive environment which influences the company to have a flexible workforce to be competitive in the world market and give opportunities to set factories in other countries and give the employers more power over the unions.
In addition in US the percentage of labor unionized is very low compared to other industrialized countries and it is coming down, This also gives the employers power to attract staff from non-union labor. As discussed above employers and employer Association have considerable power to shape the trade union practice and its influence on the theories of labor movement from collective bargaining to a more compromising labor practices in the workplace at least in some industries.
As well it also engenders a variety of labor movement practices and theories depending on the workplace recognition of unions by employees and employers. In other words a variety of labor movement theories co-exists in US, which is based on pluralist model of labor relations in some industry sectors and collective bargaining model is a norm and in some sectors of the labor movement a corporatist model is used where the employees and employers together work co-operatively play a role in workplace issues and resolving workplace disputes that is compromise than conflict in the workplace in all labor issues. In US the Marxist model of labor relations is less because the trade unions despise communist influence in trade unions and the Marxist model do not play a part in the labor movement compared to other western advanced capitalist countries.
Power of Trade Unions and AFI-CIO within the Labor Movement
Historically the AFI and CIO were splinter groups within the labor movement. However in the contemporary labor movement they are working together to have a more united voice to exert more influence about labor issues and become more politically active rather than only concerned about economic issues. They also concern about other issues such as human rights and other social issues. This shows the practices and labor movement theory is moving towards a more politically oriented approach than ever before in the labor movement. This strategy may be due to combat the decline in the trade union membership and to restore and elect political representatives who is labor friendly to shape labor market policies towards labor as in the current labor movement the government is more an advocate for the business interest and for the employers as they pursue a neo-liberal approach to politics. This is also due to the fact in US the employers in general are anti-unionist and in current environment they point to the public the cost unions in the labor movement and not the benefits to the working populations and to combat against this campaign they use media and other community avenues to inform public about the benefits of labor unions and Associations as the protector and voice of human rights in the workplace. Trade unions to varying degrees in US exert pressure on employers because of the sheer number at least in the old unionized sectors of the economy. It may continue in the future as well and collective bargaining will continue.
