Is organized labor obsolete?
1st March 2011
Robert Samuelson draws back the curtain.
Labor’s fall has been stunning. In 2010, unions represented 6.9 percent of private-sector workers. That’s lower than the 12 percent in 1929, before passage of the 1935 Wagner Act – the National Labor Relations Act – which gave workers the right to organize and required employers to recognize unions that won a secret ballot.