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Union membership in the United States fell last year to a new low, even as the labor movement scored a series of significant victories at high-profile companies that have long avoided unionization, such as Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, Chipotle and Trader Joe’s.
The share of the labor force that is unionized fell to 10.1 percent, the lowest on record, the Labor Department said Thursday, even though total union membership in the United States grew by 273,000 last year. The labor movement failed to keep up as a booming labor market added 5.3 million jobs and non-union jobs grew faster than union positions.
The share of the labor force in unions in the United States has been in almost constant decline since the mid-1950s. Membership hit a record low of 10.3 percent in 2019 and leveled off again in 2021, after rising slightly in 2020. At the union’s peak in the 1950s, more than 1 in 3 workers belongs to them.
The disappointing numbers for the US labor movement come at a time of unprecedented worker clout due to a tight labor market — conditions that tend to favor unions and labor activism. American workers, especially in low-wage jobs, have been able to demand higher pay and better treatment from employers as labor force participation rates remain low and job vacancies remain high at nearly two jobs for every applicant work in the last year. This trend is only beginning to wane.
Union efforts and labor activism tend to thrive in tight labor markets, where job opportunities are plentiful, because employers are less likely to retaliate against workers when they are a scarce resource.
But the forces that have contributed to the continued decline in union membership over the past few decades remain stronger than ever, labor advocates say. Employer opposition to unions, labor laws that do little to deter anti-union behavior, and the inability of unions to gain new members in fast-growing industries continue to weaken unions.
Heidi Schirholz, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said 2022 “was a year of real worker power because of the huge job vacancies. The question will be whether that will come out on top against the very, very strong pressure to reduce unions because of the resistance from employers.”
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In 2022, union membership in the public sector at 33.1 percent continues to outpace the private sector at 6 percent. Private employers tend to be more hostile to unions than public employers. Unions have struggled to gain a foothold in private industries, which have grown rapidly in recent decades as the economy has shifted from the production of goods to services.
Union membership rates are higher among black workers than among white and Hispanic workers, in part because of higher public sector employment rates among black workers. Black union membership rose to 11.6 percent in 2022, while white and Hispanic membership fell to 10 and 8.8 percent, respectively.
Hawaii and New York continue to lead the country with the highest union membership rates, at 21.9 and 20.7 percent, respectively. South Carolina, meanwhile, had the lowest rates at 1.7 percent.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said in a statement last year that the nation’s historically low union membership “leaves much to be desired for organized labor leaders, to say the least,” and urged union leaders to “think about ways to improve their product” other than pushing for legal changes that make it easier for workers to join unions.
The inability of the labor movement to regain lost ground at this time of increased enthusiasm for unions also weighs heavily on President Biden. The self-proclaimed “most pro-union president” in US history, Biden has worked hard at times to win the support of organized labor.
Biden has taken extraordinary steps to support unions during his presidency, including inviting new union leaders at Amazon and Starbucks to the White House last May, appointing a labor advocate to run the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and pushing legislation that he says it will create good-paying union jobs. Still, the White House found itself in an awkward position with railroad unions in November after pushing through a deal that thousands of unionized railroad workers had rejected.
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The weak numbers reflect how far unions have to go to see an increase in membership, especially in a year of booming job growth. More than 5 million jobs were created in 2022 across the economy, especially in industries where union membership is lower, such as recreation and hospitality, meaning union jobs are not outpacing non-union job growth . The economy also starts millions of new businesses, where jobs are rarely started by unions. And many of the high-profile victories at Starbucks, Apple and REI, for example, added relatively small numbers of union members. A Bloomberg analysis of labor data from 2022 found that the average unionized Starbucks store added 27 workers to union rolls.
Despite continued low union numbers, labor historians say there has been a major shift in how Americans view unions spurred by pandemic conditions. More Americans said they approved of unions in 2022 than at any time since 1965 — about 71 percent of those polled, according to Gallup.
The NLRB, which oversees union elections in the United States, reported a 53 percent increase in filings for union elections in fiscal year 2022 compared to the previous year. That increase was due in part to a grassroots campaign at Starbucks that successfully unionized more than 270 locations last year in an industry that had a 1.4 percent union density in 2022.
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Nelson Lichtenstein, a history professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, said the recent upsurge in public support for unions may be the start of a shift that is changing the way companies respond to unions. He noted Microsoft’s recent decision to take a neutral stance on the union’s bid for video game giant Activision Blizzard ahead of its controversial takeover bid.
“There’s definitely a huge increase in pro-union sentiment among young, college-educated people, from baristas to journalists,” Lichtenstein said. “We can see companies deciding that it is the lesser evil in terms of government regulation or revolutionary activity to have a unionized workforce.” I can think of many historical analogies. But right now, with the law not changing and strong opposition from employers, that’s the situation we’re in.
Nearly 150 Starbucks stores nationwide have filed for union elections, with the first store in Buffalo filing in December 2021. (Video: James Cornsilk, Zoann Murphy/The Washington Post)
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