Inequality in the Working Class: The Unanticipated Consequences of Union Organization and Strikes

Beth A. Rubin

ILR Review, 1988, vol. 41, issue 4, 553-566

Abstract: This paper explores one possible explanation for the uniquely apolitical character of the U.S. labor movement compared to the labor movements of other Western capitalist democracies. Employing a neo-Marxist class perspective, the author examines the relationship of union density (union members as a percentage of the nonagricultural work force) and of strike frequency to the distribution of earned income in the United States from 1949 to 1976. Time-series regression analysis of the quintile distribution of earned income and the Gini index of the inequality of earned income shows that union density has had mixed effects on inequality, with higher union density tending to redistribute income from middle-income workers to both the least prosperous and most prosperous workers, whereas higher strike frequency has tended to reduce income inequality generally. The author suggests that union organization may be a source of divisiveness within the working class in the postwar era.

Date: 1988
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