How New Is the "New Employment Contract"?

, 1994).The final synthesis chapter would probablyhave benefited from more extensive integra-tion of the extant literature on the factors un-derlying the decline in American private sectorunionism with the results derived from the stud-ies in the volume. This would have broadenedits scope and relevance as a review piece.Finally, in their reflections in the summarychapter, the editors suggest that unions as a“social institution [have] to pass the ‘markettest’ for survival” (p. 382). This assessment isprobably correct for American unions—func-tioning, as most of them do, as “business unions.”But in exploring the future of American union-ism, it might have been useful to consider thelong-run possibilities for American unions ifthey were to evolve more as social and politicalorganizations. If unions cannot do so, then, asthe results of the studies in this volume clearlysuggest, their prospects are limited. Criticallyexploring the long-run prospects for an institu-tionally transformed labor movement wouldhave added an important dimension to the con-cluding analysis.These suggestions notwithstanding, a num-ber of the papers in this book make quite usefulcontributions to the debate over the future ofAmerican unions and to our understanding oftheir decline. The volume is well worth read-ing.