2013 Collective Bargaining Under Duress: Case Studies of Major U.S. Industries

Abstract

For several decades, the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA; previously, the Industrial Relations Research Association) has periodically published research volumes that review the state of collective bargaining in the United States. The most recent volume was published in 2002. Since that time, the U.S. economy has experienced the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Beginning in December 2007 and progressing to a full-blown crisis in the last quarter of 2008, the Great Recession was marked by high rates of unemployment, the near collapse of the banking sector, and the bankruptcy of a host of venerable firms. The economy reeled from bankruptcy to bankruptcy during 2009 and has only slowly recovered over the intervening years. Throughout this time, the labor movement has faced numerous challenges—among them, declining union membership, lackluster organizing performance, and difficulties at the bargaining table. The chapters in this volume highlight the state of collective bargaining during this period in eight different industries across both private and public sectors.The chapters document the struggles common throughout this period in new organizing, securing viable collective agreements for members after winning election, and protecting earlier hard-won gains in the face of increasingly aggressive employer opposition. Each chapter describes the state of competitive conditions and collective bargaining in its industry during the past decade. This introduction sets the larger context in which the parties found themselves during this period: the pre- and post-financial crisis economy, union organizing success over this period, the state of labor law reform, and the responses of the American labor movement as it tries to adapt.