Unions, Cause, And Effect

It is a fact that unions were once strong, and that unions used their bargaining power and political power to better the lot of workers, and that unions are less powerful now.

But, I'm not convinced that the narrative of this meme and political arguments along these lines gets the causation right.

Unions were powerful because the demand for their members' labor was high. Unions have declined as that demand has waned. Unions facilitated utilization of power that the workers already had but weren't using efficiently. Now, workers don't have the same amount of power to mobilize, so I'm not sure that collective action is enough without the underlying power that comes from high demand for labor.

Pro-union laws lagged the growth of union power. Likewise, anti-union laws have lagged the decline of union power. Anti-union laws and regulations are an impediment to effective mobilization of worker power through unions. But, the weakness of the union movement is what made it possible to pass anti-union laws and regulations.

The decline of the private sector union movement in the U.S. has been the product of automation, out sourcing, and off shoring.  

It is also related to the shift in the U.S. economy from being an export oriented economy to one that consistently runs trade deficits. Some of the export orientation of the old U.S. economy was because the U.S. industrial infrastructure survived World War II basically unscathed, while the industrial sectors of Europe, Japan, and much of the rest of the world were utterly ruined by World War II. This gave the U.S. a decisive edge until the countries torn apart by war had time to recover.

It has also been a product of the growth of the labor force facilitated by allowing women into positions they were previously excluded from (and by birth control), reducing racial discrimination in employment (despite not eliminating it), allowing high levels of immigration, discontinuing the draft.

Also, meritocratic admissions and expanded access to higher education in the post-World War II era allowed leaders who otherwise would have become effective union leaders because they were systemically excluded by social class or race or gender from serving in other leadership roles to be co-opted as part of the managerial-professional class. Unions were harder to organize and operate effectively without leaders who were denied opportunities that a meritocracy would have permitted.

As an aside, one can also make a decent case that greater meritocracy has facilitated brain drain from rural areas to large cities, leaving rural areas without the leadership those areas need to thrive, and creating a "minor league" feeder system for less competent people to start political careers.