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Hot Labor Summer Faces Cold Winter
The recent United Auto Workers Strike (UAW) has added to a summer of record-breaking union activity. But even if labor organizers get everything they ask for — inflation-proof wages, pensions, health care — these gains will only affect a dwindling percentage of workers. The number of Americans belonging to a union is a fraction of what it once was. Amidst the media’s detailed coverage of union negotiations lies a bigger question that will determine the fate of the U.S. economy: Will unions rise again?
Organized labor is hot again.
In the last decade, public support for unions has skyrocketed from a record low to the highest rate in 60 years. This rise in approval has been accompanied by a series of historic wins for labor. Workers elected to form unions at major corporations including Starbucks, Amazon, REI and the Apple Store. Bloomberg Law reported July 2023 to be one of the busiest months for labor strikes in decades, with over 650,000 workers threatening to walk out.
There are many reasons why Americans believe in the promise of unions again. Adjusted for inflation, wages have remained largely stagnant since the 1960s, with most gains going to higher-income earners. Stress levels at work have hit a record high. Young workers, who exhibit the highest support for unions, are particularly miserable.
And yet, while support for unions has soared, Gallup reported that less than 20% of workers are interested in joining one. In a world of immense economic dissatisfaction, many people support workers from afar but don’t see the value of collective bargaining in their own workplace. Today just 10% of workers participate in a labor union.
How the labor scales were tipped.
The decline of American unions is largely the result of government policy and globalization. Many historical analyses attribute the decline to the following actions by the U.S. government:
- Starved Budgets: Beginning in 1944, some states made it illegal for unions to negotiate a fair-share agreement in which non-union workers would contribute part of their wages to union representation. These regulations, known as right-to-work laws, cut deeply into union budgets, damaging their ability to fight for better wages. Today, 26 states, Guam, and the federal government have passed these types of laws.
- Weakened Though Regulations: The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 greatly restricted how unions could form and bargain contracts. Sympathy boycotts, which allowed unions to support workers in other industries, were outlawed. Although unions would face tighter scrutiny by the National Labor Relations Board, that same institution was given no power to punish employers for illegal, union-busting actions.
- Instilled Fear: When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he fired over 11,000 federal employees for striking. The workers from the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization had gone on strike to protest long hours and low pay. The mass firing illustrated how weak collective bargaining power had grown in the wake of the Taft-Hartley Act and further discouraged new unions from forming.
In this restrictive climate, unions struggled to gain ground in new industries. Companies took notice. Emboldened by right-to-work laws and the Taft-Hartley Act, businesses acted decisively against labor. They moved to anti-union states, campaigned against unionization, and sued unions for perceived misconduct.
The collapse of U.S. manufacturing in the 1970s and the advancement of labor-replacing technology further exacerbated the downward trend of union membership. In sectors like the telephone industry, companies offshored manufacturing jobs to regions with cheaper labor. In domestic production sectors like coal mining, workers were replaced by more efficient extraction methods. Union workers who had bargained for better wages and benefits saw their job disappear.
Will unions rise once more?
Americans endlessly debate whether unions actually benefit the economy. Opponents claim that unions lower the number of overall jobs by increasing the cost of doing business in the U.S. Advocates say that the higher rates of unionization in the 1940s and 1950s built America’s famed middle class.
Regardless, it’s clear that today's workers have little right to decide for themselves whether they would benefit from a union. Current government policy allows companies to threaten their employees, fire agitators, and move business overseas when they see fit. American business has been concentrated into the hands of a few all-powerful individuals. While the public clearly supports organized labor, the legal odds stacked against unions have put their future into question.
Recently proposed legislation offers a glimmer of hope. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act would protect workers from employer retaliation, overturn right-to-work laws and broaden the definition of employee to include gig workers. However, this bill has already stalled twice in the Senate, where it needs at least 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster. Passage of the bill seems unlikely given the current configuration of Congress.
Ultimately, the resurgence of unions will be largely determined by the will of the voter. It’ll be up to the democratic process to level the playing field between worker and employee.
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Between 2008 and 2015, the various islands making up the U.S. territories received half the total media attention of equivalent-size states (4,936 vs. 10,138 articles).
An uptick in coverage of the territories in 2016 and 2017 was largely driven by the Puerto Rican debt crisis and the devastation of Hurricane María in the Caribbean.
North Korea’s 2017 announcement that Guam would be the target of its nuclear missile program also contributed to increased coverage that year.
In 2018 The New York Times reported heavily on the destruction caused by Typhoon Yutu in the Northern Marianas Islands.
The historic election of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the disparity in coverage between states and territories.
While native residents of the territories are generally U.S. citizens (except in American Samoa where they are U.S. nationals), they do not have the right to vote in general elections. Coverage about COVID-19 levels in different states and counties often excluded the territories.
The Enormous Federal Data Disparity
Federal data collection largely stops short of U.S. territories. Over the next 10 years, the Census Bureau will release approximately 264 key datasets for the 50 states. But for the territories of Guam, the Northern Marianas, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands, the Census Bureau will release only three total datasets over that same period: one decennial count and two economic surveys.
All told, the data collected by the Census Bureau will help direct at least 2.8 trillion dollars annually to 353 federal-assistance programs. While data on the 50 states helps the government direct funding where it’s needed most, a lack of territory data forces officials to operate in the dark.
For its most populous territory, Puerto Rico, federal data collection is a little better. The Census Bureau conducts an annual “Puerto Rican Community Survey” for the region’s 3.2 million residents. But the resulting estimates don’t use the same rigorous control methods as the “American Community Survey.” And data is only available on the county level instead of more specific geographies like zip codes and census tracts.
A Blindfold for Local Officials
Around the turn of the 20th century, the U.S. expanded its colonial influence over seas. Long left to the rule of the U.S. Navy, the nation’s territories were neglected by the government that claimed to rule them. This neglect hampered the development and assessment of the regions’ social programs. In recent years, a lack of federal data has hindered the ability of island territories to respond to disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather.
For example, in 2018, Typhoon Yutu devastated the Northern Mariana’s islands. By 2020, the recovery effort had just gotten underway when the spread of COVID-19 crushed the region’s critical tourism industry. When the federal government asked the region’s department of labor to estimate how many workers lost their jobs during the pandemic, they had no idea.
Speaking to the Honolulu Civil Beat, the head of Northern Mariana’s labor department Vicky Benavente said, “This is one lesson we learned. Data is so critical for justifying our asks to the federal government.”
State governments had ready access to reliable data. They used monthly reports from the Current Population Survey to monitor pandemic-induced rises in unemployment. Working without this data, the Northern Marianas government had to rely on a survey of employers conducted every two years. By 2021, so many businesses had shut their doors that few were left to reply.
About the Data
Data on union membership prior to 1983 is taken from a 1997 working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research that compiles various government reports. Union membership data following 1983 is sourced from the Current Population Survey earner study accessed via IPUMS. Survey data on public approval of unions in the U.S. are sourced from the Gallup Poll Social Series.
Further Reads
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