Labor’s Decade—Maybe

Union Prospects for the Seventies

If we read our stars right, the seventies ought to see, not the dawning of the age of Aquarius, but a new era for the working man. Of course, some catastrophe or technological breakthrough may make the seventies nobody’s decade. But if history moves on its present course, the worker and his union will once again have a place in the sun. They had it in the thirties, during a period of struggle and unrest, when the unions as we today know them were pretty much shaped.

Labor can be expected to achieve renewed strength in the seventies because many Americans do want change in our society, and labor is driven to use its power to win social change. Most of us are sick of violence and guerrilla war, sick of war abroad and at home. Most Americans want to get out of the trenches. Labor will come to the forefront in the seventies because the economic issues, again urgent, will probably remain with us, especially if conser...