Unions are far from dead.

The defeat in the Senate of a bill to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers is one more sign of the declining political power of unions in America. Nevertheless, although it is a decline that is likely to continue, James B. Dworkin, associate dean of Purdue University's Krannert Graduate School of Management and an expert on labor relations and collective bargaining, says the nation isn't seeing the demise of the labor movement.

"Over the past 50 years, union membership has been slowly going downhill. In the 1930s, union membership reached an all-time high of approximately 35% of the labor force. Because of a number of factors, membership has fallen to around 15%. I think it's a trend we're going to see continue, but we won't see unions die completely."

The rejection of the striker replacement bill was the second major legislative defeat for the labor movement in 1994. The other was enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Dworkin points out that the wane in political power was inevitable. "First, there have been huge shifts in the economy away from traditional unionized sectors toward the types of jobs that aren't usually strongholds for unions. As manufacturing jobs have fallen off, there has been a boom in the number of jobs in the wholesale and retail trade industries."

Advances in technology played a major role as well. "People who work in high-tech positions usually aren't interested in unionization. Because of technological advancements, there has been a major shift from a blue-collar workforce to a white-collar workforce. Also, over the last 60 years, more and more women have entered the workforce. Both white-collar workers and women tend to work in positions less prone to unionization."

Poor organizational campaigns and resistance to change by the unions have proven damaging, and businesses have conducted a strong campaign against unionization. "Management strategy is to try to provide workers with everything they would get if they joined a union. By giving workers health care, higher wages, vacation, and other benefits, you remove some of the incentives they might have for joining a union.

"Unions haven't done a very good job looking into the future. It wasn't too difficult to see these things coming. Instead of changing their organizing strategies to reflect where the new jobs are today and coming up with creative ways to weave their way into our changing society, unions chose to maintain the status quo...