Trade unionism is likely to be a declining influence in determining conditions of labor.
It was in December 1932 that George Barnett, president of the American Economic Association, delivered this death notice to American labor in his AEA presidential address. But just six months later, an unprecedented wave of labor unrest swept through the country, and the following years saw a threefold increase in union participation rates, unionization of most of the industrial sector and the birth of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, the country's most powerful labor organization to date. Barnett's was the kind of failed prediction that brings humility to economists and, by the same token, brings consolation to union leaders, who use the anecdote to remind observers that rumors of their death have often been greatly exaggerated. These days, unions are again hoping that forecasts of their demise are inaccurate. The situation is similar in the Ninth District, where labor union membership rates have been declining since the 1950s.