Unions and You!

In 1960, nearly half of American workers were in a union. Labor had been highly organized beginning in the 1920s and the labor movement had made great strides in labor practices through the depression and into the war. After the war, as the GIs returned to take on jobs in America’s factories, offices, and shops these new labor regulations, safe-guarded by unions, had become standard practice. By 1970, however, the whole system seemed to be ready to crack and by 1980, labor was on the back foot. Ronald Reagan would deal a deathblow to unions by firing all the air traffic controllers who were on strike and banning them from federal jobs for life. So how did unions begin to fall apart? In this video, we learn about what happened to unionization and how unions are having a comeback.