1960s 1970s, Reasons Growth Unionization Public Sector?

¶ … 1960s 1970s, reasons growth unionization public sector? Choose discuss.

There are a number of highly salient factors that can account for the burgeoning union membership in the public sector of employees that took place between the 1960's and the 1970's. One of the chief proponents for this success was the American Federation of Government Employees, which had a number of different member organizations as constituents and which played a large part of this surge in union membership. Governmental employees in general also accounted for this dramatic upswing in the public sector. These employees function at several different levels including at the state, municipal and the federal level, and their organization into labor unions significantly aided in the degree of hegemony these groups were able to establish and project during these two decades.

Additionally, several types of legislation were passed during these two decades that fostered the growth of union membership among the public sector, particularly among federal government employees. Both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon issued executive orders that made it substantially easier to join labor unions for these workers. A number of obstacles were removed by Kennedy's order, actually called for three different types of labor unions. Essentially, Kennedy's order allowed for employees in the public sector to have many of the rights that their private sector counterparts had enjoyed since the passing of the Wagner Act decades earlier. Still, Kennedy's order was circumscribing in the amount of actions that union members could take, particularly if there was a disagreement. Although they could collectively bargain, they were not permitted to engage in strikes. A number of the circumscriptions of Kennedy's order were addressed by Nixon's order which, among other things, helped to get rid of the differences among types of labor unions that federal employees could join. Additionally, Nixon's order also provided for a committee that could decide issues for a union in the event of any sort of disagreement.

One of the other factors that allowed for the rapid incline of union membership in the 1960's and 1970's of public worker employees was the disparity between their conditions of labor and those of private sector workers (Sloan & Whitney 34). Private sector workers made a substantial amount of more money than did public sector employees. Additionally, there were several developments during these decades which saw private sector employees also get better and cleaner conditions in which they labored, which had traditionally been an advantage that public sector workers could boast over them. Finally, public sector workers also saw their shorter hours and pension plans getting matched by laborers in the private sector during these decades, which essentially meant that unionized private sector workers were enjoying much more advantages than their public sector workers.