Toward Greater Union?
THE STATE OF OUR UNION IS ... SHRINKING
We are near full employment in our economy and more Americans than ever are in the work force. Why are labor unions not seeing proportional growth in their membership? Especially when a recent Gallup poll revealed 64% of people approve of unions — among the highest numbers they have registered in the last 50 years! And another study found almost 50% of nonunion workers would join a union if given the opportunity. That’s at a 40-year high! This is puzzling.
When you add to that the steady growth of US workers involved in labor strikes over the past several years — teachers, factory workers, quick service restaurant employees, grocery store workers, ride share drivers — many achieving successful concessions through collective bargaining, you might wonder why union membership is actually decreasing in America. But they are. In 1983, 20% of US workers were in labor unions. Today it’s just around 10%.
While this all seems very puzzling to me, it’s completely clear to Heidi Shierholz, the director of policy at the Economic Policy Institute. Ms Shierholz said in a recent Wall Street Journal article, “When people try to organize at their workplace there is just a relentless, fierce opposition on the part of employers.”
This raises many questions for the future of discourse between owners and labor. Are American corporations so committed to the Neo-Liberal friction-free economics ideology that they will fight to the bitter end to block unionization despite marketplace (worker) demand? How will rising healthcare costs, the growing gig economy, increasing automation, our aging population, the rapidly changing baseline for critical employment skills (among many other factors) impact the public perception and pressure for greater protections through unionization? Perhaps most importantly, is there any political will for policy change at the Federal level - or is American corporations’ lock on government too strong?