Union membership has been on the decline for some time. The percentage of workers in private sector unions dipped under 6% in 2024, with public sector union membership at 32%. Fueled by right-to-work laws, minimal consequences for organizations that violated labor laws, and an underfunded National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), unions have been pummeled by policies that seek to limit their reach and influence.
Yet there are emerging signs that prospects may be changing for workers who wish to engage in collective bargaining. A study by Kate Bronfenbrenner, a labor studies scholar at Cornell Univerity, found that support for unions reached a 60 year high in 2022. Bronfenbrenner’s data indicates that 71% of workers surveyed supported unions and 48% said they would join one if the option to do so was available. Couple that with high profile organizing efforts at major companies like Amazon and Starbucks, and it may be that the tide has turned back in favor of unions once again.
WHY ARE UNIONS SEEING A RISE IN SUPPORT?
What explains this shift? Some of the turnaround may be a result of the ways work has increasingly become uncertain and difficult for workers, let alone unrewarding and unfulfilling. Journalist Brigid Schulte has written extensively about the ways emerging trends like the expansion of noncompete clauses, unpredictable scheduling, and independent contracting have adversely affected workers. These phenomena suppress wages, constrain benefits, and curtail workers’ ability to react to emergencies and plan for routine, non-work-related needs. Sociologists Erin Kelley and Phyllis Moen have also described how ever-increasing demands on workers’ time rob them of their health, security, and even the ability to get a good night’s sleep on a regular basis. Overall work has become harder, less rewarding, and more precarious for many.
In this context, unions may come to seem like a palatable alternative. And researchers have found that the landscape of collective action has widened as well. In addition to traditional unions, worker centers have also become more common and are attracting support as well. These centers are not organized around workers at one particular site or industry but focus on forging connections and sharing resources among workers across sectors. They may support Black workers in a variety of occupations, or those doing low-wage work across sectors, or focus on supporting a common cause that would impact a broad sector of workers. Labor scholar Tom Kochan has found that these worker centers can play an integral role in amplifying worker voice—their ability to influence and affect everything from pay to work conditions to company rules that affect them.
Of late, these forms of collective worker action have yielded some results. In 2023, graduate students at MIT received increased stipends, child care, and dental subsidies. Employees at New York City’s Whitney Museum also saw pay raises due to union activity as well. Worker centers have also been instrumental in creating opportunities for workers to amplify and share difficult work conditions, including but not limited to harassment, exposure to dangerous chemicals, and wage theft. These centers may also collaborate with private sector firms and/or legislators to attempt to shift company and public policy towards outcomes that are more favorable for workers.
ARE THESE CHANGES FLEETING OR PERMANENT?
It may be that these new, expanded forms of worker activism are here to stay, or that they are fleeting and temporal. But there does appear to be a correlation between the well-documented challenges many workers experience and the rising support for collective action. It remains to be seen whether this increased support for collective action will continue. Recent cuts to the minimum wage for federal contractors, reductions in force at agencies that push for safe working conditions (the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Department of Labor, for example), and rollbacks of programs that encourage federal agencies to contract with for employers that offer workers better wages and benefits are all actions that are likely to destabilize working conditions and adversely affect worker pay, safety, and well-being. Yet despite the recent shifts in support for unions, it is also harder for workers to engage in collective action, given personnel changes at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and weakened collective bargaining rights for federal workers. It is worth watching carefully to see whether these actions push workers to continue these new forms of activism, or whether restrictions are successful in curtailing this activity.