the decline of unions, from 20.1 percent of wage- and salary-earning U.S. workers in 1980 to 11.9 percent in 2010.31 This has created an imbalance of economic power and a political vacuum. Without the protection afforded by a union, workers have fared even more poorly than they would have otherwise. Market forces have also limited the effectiveness of the unions that remain. The threat of job loss by the moving of jobs abroad has weakened their power. A bad job without decent pay is better than no job. But just as the passage of the Wagner Act during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s presidency
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