It is generally agreed that U . S . unions are in a cns1s. As a percentage of the work force, membership is falling off. Organizational drives are facing great opposition. Unions' economic and political clout have been greatly weakened. While unions are on the defensive in most Western countries, in almost none has the union decline occurred so rapidly as in the U.S.The reasons for this decline have been intensively studied. Most scholars concur that the causes are primarily external: a renewed employer anti-union militancy, weakness in labor laws and their enforcement, better human resource management, government policies which are more protective of workers in general, and possibly structural changes in the U.S. economy. N evertheless, it has been alleged that unions themselves may have contributed to their present difficulties, specifically that their strategies, structures, and goals are outdated, more suited to the 1950s than the 1990s. Further, critics argue, unions have become unresponsive to the needs of a fast-changing membership and occasionally even undemocratic. Finally, there is much discussion as to the nature of the problem and how it is to be solved.
