according to According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of U.S. workers who are part of a union has decreased slightly. This will increase from 10.1% of all workers in 2022 to 10.0% in 2023. In response to this decline, U.S. Secretary of Labor Julie Su issued a statement that began:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an increase in union membership, with 139,000 more union members in 2023 than in 2022. This means there are 400,000 more trade union members in the country than in 2021. The increase under the Biden-Harris administration underscores what's next for President Biden. He is the most pro-worker, pro-union president in history. In the private sector, we are seeing significant increases in unionization in health care workers, transportation and warehouse workers, and education services. These are workers who know they have power and are organizing to exercise that power. Workers in health care, auto manufacturing, transportation, entertainment, and more have won big victories at the bargaining table over the past year.
Again, these sentiments are expressed while BLS data shows a slight decline in union membership rates from 2022 to 2023.For the record, union membership is 10.3% in 2021and 10.8% in 2020Before the inauguration of „the most pro-worker, pro-union president in history.“ However, as the BLS reported from 2022 to 2023, Union membership among private sector workers remained flat at just 6.0%, while union membership among public sector workers fell from 33.1% to 32.5%., those who supported unions were oddly triumphalist. As a more or less randomly selected example, here are some comments from the National Partnership for Women and Families.
2023 was a landmark year for the labor movement and unions. The “hot summer of strikes” has given way to the “year of unions” with a strong job market. His more than 10 years of intensive labor organizing, beginning with the „Battle of the 15s,'' and continued campaigning have increased awareness of the need to protect workers. The pandemic helped bring about major victories for workers. The striking United Auto Workers, writers, actors, UPS workers, and Kaiser Permanente health care workers secured strong contracts that included benefits such as higher wages, access to health care, and job protections, and the U.S. of railroad workers ensured paid sick leave for the majority of employees. Building on years of organizing and hundreds of successful store votes, Starbucks employees continued to build momentum toward their first contract, defying blatant union-busting tactics. Partly due to the impact of these high-profile strikes, public support for labor unions will reach near all-time highs in 2023, with two-thirds of Americans supporting labor unions and more than six out of 10 people supporting labor unions. say it will help the U.S. economy, and one-third of Americans expect labor unions to exist. It will become stronger in the future. The workers' efforts were coupled with the Biden administration's success in revitalizing the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency dedicated to protecting employees' rights to organize and combating unfair labor practices.
During this “Memorial Year of the Labor Movement and Unions,” the percentage of U.S. workers who actually belong to unions has been declining for decades, including last year, and in fact during every presidential term. Remember that it continues to decrease over time. Certainly, in general, Public attitudes appear to be more supportive of unions.. However, some of the successful unions in the past few years have Like when we first successfully unionized the Amazon warehouse (Staten Island). It has since been embroiled in controversy and appears to be at risk of failure.
Perhaps we'll all look back to 2023, when union membership in the U.S. hit rock bottom and the great union resurgence began, but I doubt that. 2-3 years ago Suresh Naidu wrote, „Is there a future for the American labor movement?“ Published in Fall 2022 issue economic journalc perspectiveI work as the editor-in-chief. Naidu is sympathetic to trade unions, but he is also astute. For example, he points out that old-style union organizing outside of large physical facilities may not work well in an economy where many people work from home or have gig jobs. He points out that the decline in unionization rates may reflect a broader decline in the „social capital“ of people working together in different situations. He discussed various organizations (such as the movement to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour) that are not actually unions but attempt to represent the interests of workers in an organized way.
But Naidoo also points to a more fundamental problem facing American labor unions. That means you need to organize one company at a time. In a dynamic U.S. economy where some businesses are constantly downsizing or going out of business, this means unions are running on a treadmill. Unions must continue to organize new unionized firms just to offset the typical year-to-year losses of previously organized firms. companies. Naidoo writes:
In the United States and other establishment-level bargaining systems, a fundamental constraint on union density is the difficulty in organizing new companies fast enough to keep up with the exit of already unionized companies. can be mentioned. Even if unionization were orders of magnitude easier, the costly trench warfare of organizing on a plant-by-plant basis would keep union density constant in the face of structural change and natural business dynamism. Let alone expand, it will be an uphill battle.
Naidu cited a decades-old study in which about 13% of American workers were unionized, and that study found that just to stabilize union membership, „unions are , it is necessary to organize new members equal to the following numbers.'' 7.5% of current membership. ” To achieve this, it would be necessary to increase the success rate of union organizing that existed at the time by six times, just to stabilize the unionization rate. Today's calculations will be a little different, but the basic lessons remain. Americans say good things about labor unions in surveys, but when it comes to organizing and supporting a union at their workplace, most are not interested.
post Unions: facts and close relationships It first appeared Economist who can talk.