The Growing Representation Gap in the United States How to Fill It Essay

The Growing Representation Gap in the United States How to Fill It - Essay Example All these, in turn, had an effect of widening the representation gap. Employees are very much aware of this gap because they always believed that filling in this gap will â€Å"directly improve the quality of their working lives and †¦make their firms more productive and successful.†5 But the ground realities in US are not very conducive for the solution of this problem. Studies have shown that â€Å"only one out of six US employees†¦ have access to the independent representation of their individual and collective interests.†6 It is also a proven fact that though employees want representation, it is the employers who prevent them from accessing such opportunities.7 A major area of concern associated with the problem of representation is the changes that have happened in the composition of the workforce. The workforce scenario is greatly changed in US in the context of global migration of labor. Global alliances that are emerging in labour sector, the increased presence of women, and ethnic minorities in the global work force, and the new forms of workers organisations like the ‘worker centres’ of USA, have been some indicators of change. America has been depending more and more on immigrant labourers to meet the nation’s workforce needs. But these laborers have never been assimilated into the mainstream unionism. The race, ethnicity and nationality have come to play a great role in determining the group formations among workers. Organizing simply on a class basis has become a thing of the past, at least in the unorganized sector. There are attempts going on to assimilate the migrant workers into the mainstream work force of US by trade unions. This is very crucial when we see that in the United States, one in five people is from another nationality.8 The situation of the migrant workers have been pathetic as, â€Å"low-wage immigrant workers exist within industries in which there are few or no unions or other organis ational vehicles through which they can speak and act.†9 Hence, the key to filling in the representation gap also lies in understanding the challenges faced by this totally different work force mix and also the changes brought about by the extreme corporatization. The dominance of service sector over the primary production sectors has also presented a new set of problems regarding representation. When the rise of service sector in combination with the technological changes that accompany it is considered, it can be realized that the representation issue is at its worst in this area.10 The increase in part-time and temporary work clubbed with the increase in the percentage of woman workers in the total work force also create new challenges on the representation front.11 All these changes in the labor force composition is supposed to have enhanced the bargaining power of the corporate companies.12 Anti-union tactics of corporations in the United States Around 32 million civilian workers in US lack â€Å"collective bargaining rights under any law, either federal