Union booms and busts : the ongoing fight over the U.S. labor movement

"Forming and defending unions in the United States has always been a Herculean task. Employers have a long history of fighting vigorously to bust strikes and prevent workers from organizing- and, ultimately to dis-organize unions. The government, including politicians, local officials, and the courts, has provided unions only sporadic support-and sometimes it directly opposed them. This challenging terrain for unions characterizes labor relations in the 2000s, just as it did in early 1900s. And yet, throughout the last century, large numbers of workers successfully formed unions, with national trends in union strength developing a wave-like pattern. In the early 1900s, about one in ten workers were unionized; by mid-century, that number had risen to one in three. But by 2015, union density resembled the circumstances from a century earlier, with approximately one in ten workers unionized."