Labor Unions

This article is reproduced from the previous edition, volume 12, pp. 8204–8210, © 2001, Elsevier Ltd., with an updated Bibliography section supplied by the Editors. Labor unions are interest associations of workers in waged employment. The article summarizes their treatment in the social sciences and describes their rise in the industrial and political history of Western societies. It outlines the main dimensions of union organization and union growth and summarizes the literature on modern unions as collective actors in their three principal arenas: the labor market, the workplace, and the polity. The article concludes with a discussion of the prospects of unionism today