Union Organizing Commitment: Rhetoric and Reality

Abstract

This paper examines union organizing effectiveness and effort among national unions in the United States. Indicators are compared for 1986–90 and for 1996–98. Despite considerably more rhetoric favoring organizing since the 1995 election of John Sweeney to head the AFL-CIO, the data indicate modest or small changes in the average national union’s organizing effort or success. Although some “shuffling of the ranks” has occurred, generally, unions that emphasized organizing in the earlier period also tended to emphasize organizing in the latter period. Considerable variation among national union efforts and success is noted, and future research on the reasons for these differences is encouraged.