During the 1930s and 1940s, collective bargaining emerged as the workplace governance norm in much of the U.S. industrial sector. Following its peak in the 1950s, union density in the U.S. private sector fell steadily, to only 7.4 percent in 2006. Governance shifted from a formalized union norm...

The paper analyzes wages in the U.S. airline industry, focusing on the role of collective bargaining in a changing product market environment. Airline unions have considerable strike threat power, but are constrained by the financial health of carriers. Since airline deregulation, compensation...