Labor Unions
One Big Union
With the merger of the AFL and the CIO in 1955, organized labor reached the apex of its power; almost one third of American workers were union members. Unionized workers enjoyed wages and benefits that gave them a greater stake in consumer society and allowed them to pursue “the good life.” Yet business interests and conservative legislators sought to dismantle unions through right-to-work legislation, erecting barriers to organizing workers and threatening collective bargaining.
The AFL-CIO merger was, in part, a response to the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which curbed collective bargaining rights and allowed right-to-work laws that prohibited unions and employers from requiring union membership to gain employment.
