I appreciate the responses on the blog and via e-mail. Sandy had some interesting thoughts. I'll start with them:1. Corporate Greed - May have a part. I consider greed to be a relative constant. In other words, 1960's companies sought ways to make their workers get more done AND pay them only a little more. The companies in the last 20 years were simply more successful in doing it.
2. Increase in technology: Without a doubt corporations have been flattened with middle layers of management being cut out. Managers today have a much wider span of control, meaning many workers report to the average manager than did in 1960's. Perhaps these changes have allowed companies to keep the masses down.
3. Increased health care costs: That's an interesting possibility. "We'd like to pay you more but can't because we're paying so much for health care." It can't explain the entire dip, but it certainly accounts for some.
My take is quite simple: Shortly after taking office President Reagan fired the PATCO air traffic controllers. It sent a signal to the business world, "Opposing unions is the way to go." Every measure of union activity plummeted in the 1980's. Union membership dropped and has never recovered in the private sector.
I know unions are not popular, but they serve a purpose. The decline in real wages directly correlates to the decline in unions.
I'll provide an argument against my theory: "Unions were never over 50% of the private workforce. So what if they are less than 10% now?" The answer is what's called the spillover effect. Even if your company was not unionized, the company would pay you near union wages and treat their workers right in hopes of keeping out a union. As union power declined, so did the incentive to pay workers what they are worth.
Now there is no stigma to taking a striking worker's job. Unions' only weapon has been made impotent. I don't see a rise in unions anytime soon.
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