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The Implications of the Great Recession of 2008 on US Unionization Name Course Institutional Affiliation Instructor’s Affiliation Submission Date

The Implications of the Great Recession of 2008 on US Unionization Introduction The great recession of 2008 is among the hardest times in the US. Well, economic depressions had occurred earlier but the impact of this one exceeded all the preceding ones. Having gone for more about 18 months, it attracted a lot of negative economic impacts in the US. Every one in five people lost their job during this harsh period. It is even more adverse that some of these have not been able to recollect even after almost a decade (Kalleberg & Wachter, 2017). Families and social settings and relationships were greatly affected by the recession too. It caused a paradigm shift among the millennials. Despite the effects that it had on personal levels unionization is among the most hardly hit by the recession. Union membership fell drastically over the 18-month period, decreased in popularity and lost their bargaining power as compared to the initial state of the unions. These are just a few examples of the effects the recession had on the unionization in the US. This paper is written to unearth the heavy implications of the recession on unionization and the irreversible impact it had on unionization. To start with, with the increase in the unemployment rate among the blacks, their union membership fell from 14.5%. This should be a red light as the numbers of unionized employees among the blacks exceeded those of whites, Hispanics and Asians. This decline was mainly eminent among workers in fields like libraries, training and education. Other fields like community and social service witnessed a rise in the numbers of unionized members, which was exemplified by a 1.2% increase (Bureau of Statistics, 2009). The main reason behind the fall in the number of unionized employees is the loss of employment and the shift of people to part-time jobs and work on a contractual basis in an attempt to maintain their lives. Another huge impact that the US unionization witnessed during the great recession is the reduction of their negotiating power (Viser, 2016). The case is even more particular when the unions had to deal with multinational cooperatives in the United States of America. From a period when they were experiencing financial gains from the economy, the companies were reduced to trying to save themselves from collapsing. This meant that they could take any option presented to them upon the presentation. They were ready to bring in cheap and affordable labour to safeguard their interest any time they were threatened. This should be keenly noted as this is one of the biggest reasons why employees enroll in the various unions. With an increase in the shift on the nature of relations the employer and employees began establishing, unions were quickly losing their negotiation powers. From a time when the unions championed for better working conditions, they were forced to look at other important aspects lest the employers would look for cheaper sources of labour for their organizations. With this increase in the availability of options, the unions were forced to reduce their thirst and bargaining power. Since the beginning of the recession, there was a shift in the striking behavior of employees and unions. Unions were reduced to just passive vehicles. This is because a number of employees had already lost their jobs and most of them were on the verge of trying to save their jobs and families among many other important aspects. This led to a decrease in the number of recorded strikes during the period. Even after the recession, only 11 strikes with more than 1000 participants were recorded in 2010 and 19 in 2011 (Kalleberg & Wachter, 2017). This was a red sign to the members of the unions as the unions had no more fighting power for the unionized members. Unionization has also faced a great challenge as it concerns criticism from the public since then. Having been reduced to passive participants in the lobby for better conditions for the workers, the people have changed their perspectives and increased the levels of criticism in the sector. The people have started viewing it as a tool to collect free remunerations and impose charges on the members' accounts while the help they offer is very little. However, this was due to the unavoidable circumstances that they were presented with during the great recession. In fact, a very high number of employees and workers in both the public and private sectors have shifted to support laws that are against unionization and the remuneration of the unions. This is mainly due to their change from being the players in defensive strikes, strikes meant to champion for the rights of the employees to sympathy strikes. ​The last of the impacts that this paper is going to explore is the loss of public approval of unionization. Up to this time, the public had experienced the helplessness that they could experience during the adverse times. They therefore could no longer vote in unionization as a vehicle to air their various opinions and their complaints. Furthermore, the relationship between the managers and employees that were unionized had fallen drastically, forcing some of them to quit their membership. The decrease in public approval could be due to the inability of the unions t save them during the adverse times, and therefore saw no need for the same. Conclusion ​The great recession of 2008 has had great impacts on the unionization in the United Staes of America. Among the impacts is the loss of their bargaining and negotiation power, the loss of their ability to manage the various employee needs, their loss of the striking power and the loss in membership. The power has greatly diminished and as well, they have lost public approval.

References David, C & Alexandre M (2016). Introduction: The Labor Market in the Aftermath of the Great Recession. Journal of Labor Economics. ;34(S1): S1–S6. Kalleberg, A. L & Wachter T.M (2017) The US Labor Market During and After the Great Recession: Continuities and Transformations. NIHMSID. Visser, J. (2016) What happened to collective bargaining during the great recession?. IZA J Labor Policy 5, 9. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40173-016-0061-1