Appendix A Collective Organization of Labor in the Public Sector

enced a dramatic spurt in unionism, which changed it from one of the least organized to one of the most heavily organized parts of the econ-omy. What is the current extent of public sector organization in this country? Has the dramatic spurt leveled off or been reversed? How do organized public sector workers and jurisdictions differ from un-organized workers and jurisdictions? These basic questions are not easy to answer. Unlike the private sector where the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and Railway Labor Act (RLA) provide standardized federal-level criteria for defin-ing the existence and activities of unions, there are vast differences in public sector labor laws across states, occupations, and time which lead to considerable differences in the meaning of public employee “unionism ” or “bargaining. ” For example, some state laws prohibit employees from striking and provide no alternative mechanism for resolving bargaining impasses. Other laws permit the right to strike o