ed a much larger role in the labor market for industrial jobs than in the labor market for post-industrial white collar and service jobs. Some countries, Sweden for example,have strong public sector unions that include large numbers of non-industrial employees, but private employees in post-industrial sectors (professionals, managers, skilled and semi-skilled service employees) are less likely to belong to unions than their industrialcounterparts. Unions face large obstacles to organizing these workers. Many of the new jobs are in smaller enterprises, hindering communication between the unions and prospective members. But the most serious problem is the individualization of the labormarket. The post-industrial labor market is more fragmented than the industrial labor market. Workers increasingly organize in functionally specialized unions and collective bargaining has shifted to the local level(Crook, Pakulski & Waters: 98). Accordingly,interests among those responsible for negotiating on behalf of post-industrial workers increasingly conflict. Price stability, exchange rate policy and competitiveness have become important to large portions of workers in the post-industrial economy,often leading them to oppose fiscally expansionary full employment policies.Governments that value price stability face less pressure to deliver full employment in return and fiscal restraints have decreased the political will to spend their way to full employment. It is interesting to note that Norway, whose North Sea oil revenues havekept it fiscally sound, has made extensive use of public sector job creation to keep unemployment in check. A more typical Western European examples is Italy, who, in the face of large budget deficits, gave up costly public sector industries to privatization even during periods of high unemployment.Economic conditions in the 1980's and 1990's also led to declining union membership. Economic downturns and highunemployme...
