Book Reviews

The Decline of Organized Labor in the United States. Michael Goldfield Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, 294 pp.

This is an odd book because of its admixture of modern empiricism and Marxist fantasy. Its author - - an assistant professor of government at Cornell - - patiently analyzes three decades of union decline in the private sector with considerable respect for argument and evidence and concludes that conventional explanations have little or no merit. The decline supposedly lies in less favorable government labor policy since the Taft-Hartley Act, an in- crease in employer resistance to unions, and lackadaisical union organizing efforts. Yet, Goldfield also sees a U.S. economy neatly divided into two camps - - capitalists and work- ers - - locked in an irreconcilable class struggle, with divided unions and oppressed workers losing badly to the solidarity of the united capitalists. Naturally, consumers (mostly workers) - - the real directors of activity in a market regime - - are never mentioned in this collectivist morality tale.

If we put the Marxist superstructure, terminology, and distortions aside, there is some useful work in the book, especially in chapters 7 through 9. Chapter 7 argues that changes in the work force, location, and economic structure of production have had little to do with the long-run decline of unionism. Based on scattered data and sources, Goldfield probably makes the best case that can be made that changes in sex, race, age, education, occupation, sunbelt-rustbelt, industry, and unit size leave the labor force no less receptive to unionism than it was in the 1940s and 1950s. Two problems render his case less overwhelming than the author believes: (1) we lack solid time-series evidence on worker receptivity toward unions disaggregated by characteristics (Lipset, 1986), and (2) the relative stability of union NLRB victories over time disaggregated by region, industry, and unit size may be the result of union optimization decisions at the margin rather than the unexploited pickings the author believes exist for unions.

To focus on new organizing, Chapter 8 experiments with time-series models to explain the percentage pattern of union victories and pro-union votes in national NLRB certifica- tion elections from 1935 to 1980 and from 1948 to 1980. While the author's discussion is interesting, the work suffers from the usual difficulties of aggregate time series. Statistical discrimination among hypotheses is worse than in the usual macroeconomic models because of weak theorizing and consequent interpretation problems. For example, in- creases in aggregate output per hour supposedly mark defeats for unions and workers because they are due to speed-ups or technological displacement and, therefore, reduce union election victories. At best, this is a contorted view of productivity growth, the mechanism that has largely freed working people from hard labor and that provides the only vehicle for sustained increases in mass prosperity. Fortunately, Goldfield puts little stock in his time-series regressions, remarking that the regressors seem to account for cyclical variation but not the secular decline in union campaign victories.

Chapter 9 makes the case for the author 's "real culprits" in the union decline. Putting the Marxist terminology and historical bias aside, much of the discussion has relevance on

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positive grounds. Shifts in labor law, its application, and the amount of employer resis- tance and union organizing fervor matter for union fortunes. One of the more interesting pieces of evidence that Goldfield offers is that unions have a high rate of success in multi- union elections in the contested public sector. I agree that competition among unions brings success, but it is too bad the author does not realize that this proposition applies throughout the economy.

As with all historical analyses, determining the weight to assign to factors such as employer resistance and union fervor is a matter of individual judgment. Goldfield, errs by not trying to critically explain the recent correlated evolution of these determinants of union organizing success. He claims, for example, that public policy is a "reflection of the relative strengths of organized labor and employers." It is more complex than that. David Hume was closer to the truth when he observed that all governments rule by public opinion. Further, Goldfield does not look very hard for evidence that anti-unionsm among workers has risen, especially among nonunion workers, over the last three decades. At a minimum, there is evidence of declining enthusiasm for unionism. Witness the decline in the image of union leaders in opinion polls (Lipset, 1986) or the overwhelming popularity of President Reagan's enforcement of federal law and the controllers' contracts in the PATCO strike.

An increase in employer resistance cannot just be dismissed as a rise in capitalists' cussedness; employees are more receptive to arguments about company survival, produc- tivity, individualism, and free markets and less impressed with the credo of unionism. Republican candidates and employers sometimes appeal to workers' self-interest better than militant unions can, no doubt a horrible thought for Professor Goldfield to contem- plate. At least if the competition in ideas stays open, workers can make more informed choices about what is in their individual and collective interests.

Morgan Reynolds Texas A&M University

REFERENCE

Lipset, Seymour Martin. "Labor Unions in the Public Mind." In Unions in Transition. Edited by Seymour Martin Lipset. San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1986.

Employee Relations: Trends and Practices in the Textile Industry Richard L. Rowan and Robert E. Barr Philadelphia: Wharton School Industrial Research Unit, 1987

In their first chapter the authors note that " the major concern of this study is to examine employment trends and industrial relations/personnel policy and practices in the textile industry." To accomplish this purpose, they introduce their research methodology, which includes:

1. selecting the SIC 22 group Textile Mill Products as the targeted study area; 2. collecting 86 responses to a lengthy questionnaire mailed to an unpublished number

of textile companies, representing 28 companies in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia - - the three states that employ 56 percent of the national textile employment;

3. conducting 24 on-site interviews at the textile corporation and plant level, with intensive treatment given to 8 undisclosed companies of the 10 largest publicly owned com- panies; and

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4. compiling historical background data on the South and on the textile and other related industries.

Chapters 2, 3, and 4 account for over 70 percent of the book and are devoted to provid- ing a historical perspective. In Chapter 2, the authors examine the structure of the textile industry, discussing how rising import levels, declining labor availability, and increasing government regulations have pushed textile leaders toward increased plant closings, more capital intensity, and more centralization. Yet, industrial production in 1985 was 31 percent higher than in 1967, despite a decrease of 25 percent in employment and reduced hours of employment. During this time, employment reductions have weeded out marginal workers, thereby producing industry turnover. At the same time, white males are leaving the indus- try, being replaced by nonwhite males and white females in the white-collar fields and by nonwhite females in the blue-collar occupations.

In Chapter 3, Rowan and Barr turn their attention to the Southern Industrial Environ- ment and to the three states of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, where textile employment predominates, and to the twelve counties in North Carolina, the ten counties in South Carolina, and the four counties in Georgia that have a significant textile industry presence. Extensive regional, state, and county data are analyzed, and trends indicate that the textile industry is being challenged by higher paying, high-technology industries, such as metals, machinery, electrical, chemicals, and rubber. At the same time, the South is experiencing a decline in nonwhite population, reducing the pool of available unskilled and semi-skilled labor to the textile industry in the decades ahead.

In Chapter 4, the authors discuss union attempts to organize the textile industry. Beginning with a discussion of organizing efforts as far back as 1819, the authors provide a thorough historical discussion on why both crafts and industrial unions have failed to pene- trate the textile industry. The authors discuss the outcomes of numerous organizing cam- paigns, including the closing of the Milliken plant in 1956, the J.P. Stevens attack that began in 1963, and the Cannon Mills campaign in 1964.

The authors give tabled NLRB election results by year, by case type, by state, by NLRB region, by right-to-work versus non-right-to-work laws, and by unions with ten elec- tions or more. Although no comprehensive model is developed and no empirical tests are made, the authors do discuss the impact of various variables on union textile victory per- centages and on union textile yield percentages (yield is defined as total eligible voters in units won divided by total eligible voters multiplied by 100). Victories and yields tend to improve as unit size declines, as economic conditions deteriorate, and as elections are held in non-right-to-work states. Again, these results are based on very casual correlations. Future studies might model the impact of the identified variables on individual textile firm election outcomes.

In Chapter 5, the authors discuss~the results obtained through the questionnaire. The usual limitations of questionnaire research apply. Also, it is probable that few, if any, of the major privately held companies, such as MiUiken, participated in the study. Still, the results are representative.

As expected, the industry is dominated by relatively small operating units, even when the parent company is large. At the same time, employment policies and practices are highly centralized at the corporate level, with a chief personnel officer or human resource manager responsible for keeping operating units nonunion.

Throughout the chapter, the authors provide an abundance of figures and tables to report their findings. They show that:

1. there is a low ratio of salaried to hourly workers in the responding firms/plants;

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2. there is limited use of part-time employment; 3. most firms have established and used minimum hiring qualifications, require

employees to complete probationary work periods before being made permanent, have OJT programs, and use training wage differential to shift OJT costs to the employee;

4. respondents have a mean turnover percentage of 30 that was considered acceptable and under control;

5. promotion policy is based on merit, then seniority; 6. most plants have fixed shifts, five or six days a week, and pay a shift differential,

although is supposedly not required to maintain labor supply; 7. most workers and companies prefer a 40-hour week; 8. most companies lose one-half to two hours per employee each week due to

unauthorized absenteeism or tardiness; 9. wage-setting policy is based on industry practice; 10. only one respondent in the study had a COLA; 11. most companies have in response to competitive pressures employer-paid insur-

ance and retirement programs; 12. just about all respondents have vacation, holiday, and personal leave with pay;

and 13. over 90 percent of the study plants have a company-operated grievance procedure. Questionnaire results also show that respondents invest heavily in safety and health pro-

grams, often operating one million person hours without any lost time because of an acci- dent. Last, and certainly not least, the authors' survey results indicate that the respondents are basically operating union-free plants. Even in the few plants that were organized, less than 50 percent of the covered workers were paying dues. Most organizing activity is being put forth by the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU).

In the book's final chapter, the authors present their conclusions from the study and make their predictions. The pressure of lower-price imports combined with the changing southern industrial environment will continue to squeeze the textile industry on both the output and input sides. In response, the industry will continue its trends toward produc- tivity improvements through automation, mergers, and consolidations, leading to further absolute employment cutbacks and plant closures. Another response will entail aggres- sively resisting unionization. At the same time, employment policies and practices will still be designed to keep labor costs from increasing production costs. Also, more specialization or niche-finding will occur as firms compete with imports.

Overall, the authors provide a very thorough descriptive analysis of the employment trends and the industrial relations/personnel policies and practices in the textile industry. Labor economists studying labor issues in the textile industry will want to include the book on their reading list. Professors teaching labor economics or collective bargaining should consider having students read the text for special reports or for case study analysis. Finally, investors from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and other parts of the world that are buying or building textile operations in the United States will find the text helpful when establishing their employee relations and personnel practices.

Ralph D. Elliott Clemson University