But despite this historic strike and Document contract negotiations This year, there’s been a lot going on against labor organizers. Union membership rates have been declining for decades due to changes in the U.S. economy, employer opposition, growing political partisanship and legal challenges.
Dean Alexander Colvin said: “While we are seeing stronger support for unions and favorability in opinion polls reaching levels not seen since at least the 1960s, Translating workers’ desire for representation into actual representation is really difficult under our current system,” the professor at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations told The Associated Press.
What’s driving union activity now?
This year alone, at least 457,000 workers in the United States have participated in 315 strikes, according to Harvard University Ph.D. Johnnie Kallas. Candidate and Program Director of the Cornell University Industrial Action Tracking Program.
S&P Global Market Intelligence said strikes led to more than 7.4 million days of absenteeism in 2023, the highest level in nearly a quarter-century.
Labor activism is reaching a boiling point as the cost of living soars and inequality rises, especially the widening wage gap between workers and top executives. These inequalities have become even more apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic as American businesses make record profits.
“It’s a perfect storm, so now you’re seeing a lot of union movement,” said Eunice Han, an assistant professor at the University of Utah who specializes in labor economics.
The tightest U.S. labor market in decades is increasing the leverage of workers who feel they must challenge their employers.
The U.S. unemployment rate is near a 50-year low, with about 1.5 job openings for every unemployed person, according to recent government data.
In August, U.S. employers A staggering 9.6 million job vacancies postedfar exceeding the expectations of economists inside and outside the Fed, which has been trying to pass A series of interest rate hikes.
Unfilled jobs mean more and more American workers are quitting their jobs, confident they can find better-paying jobs.
The unemployment rate in September and August was 3.8%, further showing how leveraged workers are.
Union rates have been falling for decades. Why?
Although picket lines appear to be everywhere, union membership rates have been declining for decades. Today, only 6 percent of U.S. private-sector workers are unionized, a drop in the bucket compared with 35 percent of union members in 1953.
Todd Vachon, assistant professor at the School of Management and Industrial Relations at Rutgers University, pointed out that the post-World War II Taft-Hartley Act limited the power of unions, in addition to factors such as the transfer of manufacturing jobs overseas and the growth of manufacturing employment. . The anti-union stance of employers and legislators grew in the 1970s and 1980s.
Vachon mentioned one pivotal moment in particular, when President Ronald Reagan fired all striking air traffic controllers in 1981.
“This sends a very clear signal to the business community that it’s okay to be completely anti-union and anti-union in a very militant way, because even the president of the United States is doing that,” he said.
Additionally, with the rise of the gig economy, some large companies have reclassified workers as “contractors,” making it harder for them to unionize. The growth of industries with little history of union membership, such as technology, has also contributed to a decline in unionization.
The number of public and private sector workers who are unionized actually increased by 273,000 last year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the U.S. labor force is growing faster, which means the share of union members has declined slightly.
What labor laws affect unions today?
The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gave private-sector workers the right to unionize, but legal support for public employees came decades later and varied from state to state.
A 1961 executive order issued by President John F. Kennedy allowed federal employees to organize. Around the same time, states also began passing labor laws for their public employees.
Overall, states in the Northeast, Upper Midwest and West Coast have adopted broader collective bargaining laws — covering all different categories of public employees, Vachon explained.
Some states in the South and Lower Midwest “will allow police and firefighters to bargain collectively, but not state employees. Or they’ll let state employees bargain, but they can only bargain over wages,” Vachon said. “This shows how important labor law is. It really sets the framework for whether workers can successfully unionize.”
A handful of states also have “right-to-work” laws that require unions to represent everyone in unionized workplaces, regardless of whether individuals choose to pay dues or formally join. Such legislation has been criticized for undermining unions’ financial resources and bargaining power.
Attitudes toward unions have also become increasingly partisan and divided geographically. Politically “blue” states tend to have higher unionization rates than “red” states. Some states have also eliminated union protections in recent years, Han said.
Organize more challenges today
Unionization efforts have expanded, but many are taking place in places with little history of organized labor, setting a higher bar for workers.
Colvin noted that Starbucks employees had witnessed union movements Cut last year. Starbucks accused of being ‘chilling’ Close union shop and Fire workers who support unions. Current labor laws place restrictions on organizers.
“Our labor laws were written in the 1930s and 1940s when auto plants with 10,000 workers were being organized,” he said. Starbucks “is broken up into these little coffee shops with 15 employees… They need to band together to have the bargaining power with the big employers. But our labor laws don’t help them do that,” Colvin said.
Service jobs can be difficult to organize due to part-time work and high turnover rates.The same can be said Amazon warehousewhere there has been a push for unionization.
Still, more workers in many industries have begun to organize in recent years. And, especially with high-profile strikes and contract negotiations taking place this summer, labor issues are once again in the spotlight.
according to Gallup Public support for stronger unions stands at 67%, down slightly from 71% last year but on par with levels in the 1960s.
But experts say the desire to organize can only go so far without a change in policy.
“We’re definitely at an inflection point in people’s awareness,” Vachon added. “I think whether this will actually translate into a change in the direction of union density will depend a lot on how this awareness manifests itself in the political arena.”
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