Abstract
Since the 1970s, the United States has experienced several waves of economic transformation, each reconfiguring the structure of employer-employee relationships. The general direction has been toward mounting antiunion hostility from employers and state legislatures, greater austerity in the public sphere, and an accelerated intensification of work, putting the squeeze on employees.
The Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA) periodically publishes an edited volume containing snapshots of the state of labor relations in particular industries. Prior to the volume under review, the last LERA volume was published in 2002. This new collection summarizes developments and transformations since then, covering a time period that includes the economic fallout of 9/11 as well as the crisis of 2008-2009 and its ongoing effects. The editors’ straightforward goal is to “highlight the state of collective bargaining during this period in eight different industries across both private and public sectors” (p. 1).
The articles included provide detailed and insightful summaries of the state of affairs in the airline industry, auto, hotels and casinos, health care, meat and poultry, newspapers, the public sector, and professional sports. The book concludes with commentaries from union and management practitioners.
The chapters share a common approach, providing an overview of the recent history of the industry under examination, the state of the unions, and the last decade’s developments in labor relations. With the exception of professional sports, each is to some extent dominated by the restructuring of industry, employment, and internal work processes, intensifying after 2008. Unsurprisingly, words such as “tumultuous,” “crisis,” and “transition” appear frequently in chapter titles and the text. Each article concludes with a view to the future.
Crucial insights are found throughout the book. For example, Katz, MacDuffie, and Pil note that while the automobile industry has generally set the pace for U.S. collective bargaining in general, the pole of gravity within the auto industry is now the collection of nonunion transplants in the South. The resulting trend toward concessions, such as multitiered wage structures, has proliferated to other sectors of industry.
In the public sector chapter, authors Hebdon, Slater, and Masters note that in the aftermath of the economic crisis and the 2010 elections, more than 1,700 bills attacking public-sector workers were filed across all 50 states. They argue that “the attacks were motivated by political opportunism and ideological opposition to collective bargaining” (p. 266) and that the failed attempt to recall Wisconsin’s governor “demonstrates the limitations of political action by public sector unions and their allies” (p. 284). This chapter provides a valuable appendix of state-by-state changes in public-sector labor law.
In the essay on the meat and poultry industry, authors Keefe and Bolton reject the hypothesis that the massive restructuring of the beef and pork industry since the 1980s was caused by internal competition stemming from the “IBP model.” Instead, they argue, it was triggered by the competitive influence of the surging low-wage poultry industry. The American dietary shift to lower-cost chicken, especially after McDonald’s introduction of Chicken McNuggets in 1983, “unleashed a ferocious industrial restructuring” in the red meat industry (p. 171). Arguments such as these augment the value of the book, making it much more than just a series of overviews.
Each chapter provides information and insights that would be valuable to experts in those industries as well as to nonexperts who seek an understanding of any of these sectors. The collection of these case studies in a single volume also clarifies the common threads that run through them all and, by extension, through the U.S. economy. This book would be useful for comparative case studies in a labor relations course. Labor educators and workers could also use relevant chapters as tools for a “state of our industry” analysis before undertaking a strategic organizing or contract campaign.