Representing Worker Interests: Past, Present, and Future

Although productivity and employment are rising in the United States, many US workers continue to suffer from stagnant wages and poor benefits. This essay reviews three books about the state of labor organization, both through formal unions and informal workers' groups, in the United States and globally: What Unions No Longer Do, by Jake Rosenfeld; New Labor in New York: Precarious Workers and the Future of the Labor Movement, edited by Ruth Milkman and Ed Ott; and The Promise and Limits of Private Power: Promoting Labor Standards in a Global Economy, by Richard M. Locke. It concludes with some suggestions of ways to increase employee voice and raise labor standards.