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There has been a lot of recent controversy and news about the decline of labor unions in America, particularly in the wake of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s most recent victory over organized labor: the passage of right-to-work laws in Wisconsin. These laws allow workers the right to choose whether or not they want to join a union, and prevent them from being charged union dues if they opt not to. Wisconsin became the 25th state to pass such laws.   Labor unions in America, as we know them, have their roots in the guild systems of colonial America. Early colonial craftsmen found that it was in their best interests to organize and unilaterally charge the same price for their goods, rather than to compete amongst themselves and drive down their profit margins. Unions did not begin to take their modern form until the early 19th century, with the formation of two major unions, the National Labor Union (1866) and the Knights of Labor (1869). As the Knights grew, they began to encroach on the territory of the more specialized national trade unions, which retaliated by consolidating to form the now famous American Federation of Labor (AFL). Eventually the Knights floundered and the AFL thrived, merging with the Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO) to become the now dominant AFL-CIO.   According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, membership of labor unions has been in decline since its peak in the 1950s. In 2014, 11.1 percent of workers in the United States were members of a union, down from 23.5 percent in 1970.<a href="https://d.docs.live.net/66606238d6e95a1e/Computer%20Documents/Short%20overview%20on%20history.docx#_ftn1" style="text-decoration:none;">[1]</a> Proponents of unions worry that this decline will be exacerbated in the wake of Wisconsin’s newly passed “right-to-work” laws. Indiana, which implemented a similar law in February of 2012, saw its labor union membership drop 18 percent in the next year. “Right-to-work” laws are a phenomenon generally confined to states controlled by Republicans. For example, in Illinois, a state that generally leans left, the election of a Republican governor led to an executive order which decreed that laborers who opted out of labor unions would not have to pay union fees.   This is problematic for unions because they generally rely on collective bargaining to achieve their aims. In other words, the fewer workers a union can rally to stop working during a strike, the less power it wields against employers. In this way, a union is effectively a cartel, which crumbles when any player backs out of the agreement. However, it is hard to convince members to join a union if they can still get the same gains without paying union fees. Opponents of the unions argue that the ‘cartel-like’ characteristics of unions serves to limit the amount of available jobs, even as it raises wages.   In spite of all this, there are signs of a growing need for unions. Optimists point to fervent protests by Wal-Mart employees on Black Friday of last year and fast-food workers in New York. Nonetheless, the tide of legislation has turned against unionization and proponents of organized labor face an uphill battle against a growing population of the public that sees them as outdated.

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