Labor union support high, worker membership at all-time low

Leading as much as Labor Day, many pro-union groups and politicians claimed American support for labor unions has lately reached historic highs.

That’s true, per a newly-released Gallup poll, which confirmed 71 % of respondents approve of unions. The quantity hasn’t been that top since 1965.

On Labor Day, President Joe Biden pointed to the rising support and known as it “a key way we’re rebuilding the economy… to grow from the bottom up and the middle out.”

But has that rise in recognition sparked any rise in precise union membership? 

Has elevated support for unions translated into a rise in union membership?

No. Although support for unions is rising, the share of Americans in unions stays at historic lows.

Since 1983, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has tracked what proportion of American staff are members of a union.

The first yr that quantity was measured, it stood at 20.1 %. It has steadily declined almost yearly since, and fell to an all-time low of 10.3 % in 2021, the newest yr now we have numbers for.

The price did barely enhance in 2020, as a result of when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted lockdowns and layoffs, these job cuts disproportionately affected non-union workers, whereas a better proportion of unionized staff saved their jobs, in accordance with the BLS. When the financial restoration started and non-union staff regained employment, the general price of unionized staff fell again down.

Harvard Business School additionally retains knowledge on union membership in international locations world wide, because the late nineteenth century. Since their knowledge goes again even additional than the BLS knowledge, we will see that the all-time peak for union membership was within the mid-Nineteen Sixties, when it exceeded 30 %. 

Like the BLS knowledge, Harvard’s figures present the share of the workforce in a union has been steadily declining for many years, and has lately reached lows not seen since earlier than World War II.

Rising support for unions coinciding with declining membership isn’t stunning to labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein.

“There is no… correlation between popular support for unionism and… actual growth of unions,” he informed VERIFY.

Lichtenstein says within the mid-Twentieth century financial system, it was typically accepted that the preeminent industries of the time like automaking have been nearly fully unionized. But over time, membership fell for quite a lot of causes and now in a few of at the moment’s greatest industries like tech, there’s no cultural expectation of organized labor.

“In industries like auto, you had 100 percent unionization, practically,” he stated. “Unionism naturally declines as a proportion of the workforce as new industries come to the fore, and as new techniques are created to kind of avoid unionization.”

The labor motion has labored to undo that pattern by organizing workforces not ordinarily considered unionized, like Starbucks baristas. Amazon warehouse workers, too, have lately organized in some areas.

“I think it’s partly a product of the pandemic, it’s a product of a kind of thwarted career paths… I think the pandemic created a sense that managers had betrayed their workforce, whether it’s health and safety, or they gave them a raise and then took it away,” stated Lichtenstein. “[And now] you have a period, basically, of prosperity, and a tight labor market. So that gives courage to workers.”

But whether or not that’s an indication that the general decline in union membership might quickly reverse for the lengthy haul, or whether or not it’s merely remoted incidents spawning from pandemic-related circumstances, stays to be seen.