Why Labor Is Losing Even as It Wins

The past year was a practical success for organized labor in America. Waves of strikes generated national heat and focused attention on workplace wages and conditions, and union members won significant gains in Hollywood, with the country’s Big Three automakers, at UPS and at California-based Kaiser Permanente, among others.

It all made for compelling headlines. And those headlines masked a frustrating truth for organizers: Good news notwithstanding, the unionization rate in the U.S. fell once again in 2023.

That’s according to a report released last month by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, which closely tracks union activity and analyzes data provided by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. As the report’s authors noted, the surge in labor activity last year didn’t produce greater union representation — at least, not yet. 

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 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the raw number of U.S. workers represented by a union actually increased in 2023 by about 191,000. But the percentage of all workers that were union-represented – the unionization rate — dipped from 11.3% to 11.2% in the surging job market, continuing a decline that has endured for more than 40 years.

“Workers are organizing at a pace not seen in recent decades. High-profile campaigns like those at Amazon and Starbucks highlight this momentum,” the report’s authors wrote. “However, we are not seeing this resurgence translate into significant increases in union density.”

The culprit? Labor laws that deny workers the ability to unionize successfully, along with an ever-increasing boldness on the part of employers to prevent unions from forming at their workplaces — or to meaningfully negotiate with them once they do form.

And those companies fear little retribution, as the penalties for ignoring U.S. labor law remain remarkably toothless.

“Companies can treat violating the National Labor Relations Act as just the cost of doing business, because that cost is so low,” Sharon Block, a Harvard professor and labor expert, told Capital & Main last year. “We shouldn’t have a law that invites noncompliance.”

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One of the easiest jumps in logic was to imagine that high-profile victories in 2023 for the Writers Guild of America, the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, the United Auto Workers and others — part of what union activists dubbed the Hot Labor Summer — meant that union power was on the rise.

There was nothing minimal about those victories. A massive strike by nearly 70,000 Kaiser Permanente workers in California led to raises totaling 21% over four years. Hollywood writers and actors won wage gains and significant protections against studios using AI to replace them. UPS workers won a five-year contract with substantial wage and safety gains, and the United Auto Workers secured pay increases for its members of 25% and up from Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

But as the Economic Policy Institute report noted, the unions are still swimming upstream. Decades of pro-employer court rulings have compromised the National Labor Relations Act and made it harder for unions to form, and the fact of weak federal penalties for anti-union behavior encourages employers who are so inclined to do everything they can to disrupt organizing efforts — including threats and firings of workplace organizers.

As for 2023, the number of union-represented jobs added was dwarfed by nonunion additions. The U.S. job market surged throughout the year, adding 2.9 million jobs in all.

When organizing is successful, some companies turn to a different tactic: refusing to bargain in good faith for a contract. Of the nearly 400 individual Starbucks locations that have filed to organize or already unionized, not one has reached a contract agreement with Starbucks management.

“It takes a very, very long time to get that first contract,” said Michelle Kaminski, a labor expert at Michigan State University. “And if an employer just keeps on not coming to an agreement and delays and delays, the union can lose support of the members and the very people who voted for it.”

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There’s no scenario under which the union victories of the past year were inconsequential, labor leaders say. One example of the influence of those wins can be found in the auto market: Shortly after the United Auto Workers’ contract agreement with the Big Three, nonunion workers at Toyota, Honda and Hyundai plants in the U.S. all received wage bumps — a clear attempt by their employers to head off organizing momentum at their plants.

Those bargaining wins also add to the body of evidence that union representation improves workers’ lives. The Economic Policy Institute’s report said union workers on average earn 13.5% more than nonunion peers in the same job sector, have greater access to health care and paid sick leave, and are far more likely to be offered retirement plans.

People are noticing. Public support for unions is near its highest level in 50 years, and the policy institute used existing metrics to estimate that in 2023, roughly 60 million Americans wanted to join a union but were unable to do so.

States like California, which put robust worker protections in place and refuse to enact anti-union “right to work” statutes, make it easier for such organizing to happen. But absent meaningful federal reform, workers will struggle for representation — and suffer without it.

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