New Organizing

The AFL-CIO says that labor is “organizing like never before.” Is that accurate? While data is not readily available for public sector workers, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) tracks the number of workers involved in union elections in the private sector. In 2023, approximately 93,000 workers participated in an election for union representation, up from 63,000 in 2022. And 2024 is on pace for approximately 107,000 workers voting on union representation.

The increase in union representation elections is encouraging, but if you step back and look at the number of elections in relation to total employment, the challenge becomes clearer. In 2023, the 93,000 workers participating in union elections represented just 0.09 percent of the 108.4 million production and nonsupervisory employees in the private sector. In 2024, the percentage is projected to be about 0.10 percent of all workers. In other words, only one-tenth of 1 percent of eligible US workers in the private sector are getting the opportunity to vote for a union. This pace of organizing is not enough to keep up with employment growth, let alone meaningfully increase union density in the private sector (the percentage of all workers represented by a union).

Comparing this to the historical data, it’s harder to support the contention that labor is “organizing like never before.” The 2023–24 election rate of 0.09–0.10 percent is just a smidge higher than the 2010s decade and significantly lags the average election rate of 0.17 percent in the 2000s decade.

But imagine if labor put on its ’70s bell-bottom jeans and started organizing 1 percent of eligible workers as unions did in the 1970s, not the current one-tenth of 1 percent rate. Instead of 107,000 workers voting for a union in 2024, the number would be more like 1.1 million workers.

Why isn’t this happening, given the upsurge in worker interest in unions? It isn’t a funding issue, as labor has over $35 billion in net assets. My take is that the existing labor leadership — many of whom have never committed to a robust organizing program to begin with — continue to believe that organizing is futile unless labor law is reformed. This belief remains entrenched even though unions are winning three-quarters of union elections under Joe Biden’s revamped National Labor Relations Board.

Secondarily, unions are justifiably worried about obtaining first contracts for newly organized workers (exhibit A: Starbucks) and concerned that the NLRB is too underfunded to process higher levels of worker petitions for elections.

According to the latest Gallup poll, approval of unions is at the highest level since the 1960s, yet only one-tenth of 1 percent of workers in the private sector get a chance to vote for a union. Organized labor should translate this popular support into action by pledging to give one million workers a year the opportunity to vote for a union of their choice.

Strike Wave or Strike Blip?

Through June 2024, total compensation for union workers is up 6 percent year over year, while nonunion workers have only seen a 3.6 percent increase over the same period. That’s the good news.

The disappointing news is the strike “wave” of 2023 appears to be a blip rather than an emerging trend. In 2023, approximately 459,000 workers went on strike, including 50,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) members at the Big Three automakers and 160,000 Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) members employed by the entertainment industry. Through late August 2024, approximately 106,000 workers have been on strike, significantly lagging the 2023 total strike numbers. While additional union contracts are expiring in the fall — most notably that between the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) and Boeing — it is likely that 2024 will fall short of the 2023 strike numbers.

Looking at strikes as a percentage of the nonfarm workforce, the Red for Ed strikes of 2018–19 and the 2023 strikes were the largest strikes dating back to 2000, representing about one-third of 1 percent of the total workforce. However, as with new organizing, the 1970s were marked by a vastly higher proportion of workers on strike as a percentage of the workforce, reaching nearly 2 percent of all employees. If 2 percent of workers went on strike today, roughly 3.1 million would be picketing. Visiting all of those picket lines would surely be a travel nightmare for the presidential candidates and faux populists rushing to attend.

Union Finances Continue to Balloon

While the organizing and strike data are not breaking historical records, union finances are another story. As I’ve written about previously, organized labor continues to amass a staggering cache of cash and investments. Net assets (assets minus liabilities) grew $2.6 billion in 2023, from $32.7 billion in 2022 to $35.3 billion in 2023. According to data from the Bureau of Economic Affairs, union dues are up $871 million as of June 2024, likely continuing the trend of asset growth in 2024.

While labor’s net assets have risen 225 percent since 2010, membership has declined by 1.8 million workers. I call this state of affairs “finance unionism,” where unions spend far less on organizing and strikes than they collect in membership dues and investment income and invest the surplus in the financial markets.

No union has contested this data, and to my knowledge, no union has gone on record to explain the rationale for stockpiling assets rather than investing in organizing and strikes.

Union Democracy and Governance in 2024

Who makes the critical strategic decisions for organized labor? Who decides whether to invest union assets in the financial markets rather than organizing and strike activity? That would be the elected labor leadership. While the election of union leaders is formally democratic, the practice of union democracy is far from ideal.

The vast majority of top union officers are not directly elected by the members, and very few leaders face contested or competitive elections. In my view, the lack of substantive debate and member participation is a failure of democratic governance. The 2024 conventions at some of the largest unions in the United States confirm this trend:

• Service Employees International Union (SEIU), 1,845,500 members: Mary Kay Henry stepped down in 2024 after serving fourteen years as president. April Verrett won the top position with 99.4 percent of the delegate vote. Many of the delegates to the convention were superdelegates — i.e., elected local officers who automatically became delegates without a membership vote.
• American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 1,732,808 members. Randi Weingarten, the AFT president since 2008, was reelected to another term without any public opposition. Besides Douglas McCarron of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters (who has served for thirty years), Weingarten is the longest-tenured labor leader in the United States.
• American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), 1,248,681 members: Lee Saunders, elected president in 2012, was reelected by the delegates by acclamation (i.e., with no challenger) to another four-year term. By the end of his term, Saunders will have served for sixteen years.
• American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), 313,108 members: Everett Kelley, president of the union since 2020, faced a contested election at the convention, winning with 59 percent of the delegate vote.
• UNITE HERE, 264,334 members: Taking over from President D. Taylor, Gwen Mills was elected by delegates in an uncontested election.
• Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA), 45,500 members: Despite president Sara Nelson’s endorsement of a resolution calling for direct elections of officers, the AFA-CWA Board of Directors voted against the constitutional change.

Of the large unions with a convention in 2024, only AFGE had a competitive election. The remaining unions — representing 5.1 million members and over a third of all union members — had no contested or competitive elections for the top leadership posts.

Labor Law Reform Version 4.0

With the relatively low organizing numbers and waning strike wave, what is organized labor’s strategy for reversing its decades-long decline? It seems to be the same strategy that it has pursued for decades: reform labor law. It was the strategy of the 1990s (the Cesar Chavez Workplace Fairness Act), the strategy of 2008 (the Employee Free Choice Act), the strategy of 2020 (the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act), and it looks to be the strategy of 2024.

Of course, labor law reform is vitally important, and it should be labor’s top legislative priority. But if Kamala Harris wins the presidency, and if Democrats control Congress, Harris will have to overcome a certain filibuster in the Senate and wavering support from “moderate” Democrats facing unified opposition from employers. This is the traditional graveyard for labor law reform, but hopefully the labor movement can transform its growing popularity into a legislative accomplishment in 2025.

The problem, however, is that labor’s legislative strategy has an expiration date. As long as labor’s share of the workforce continues to decline (5.8 million members lost since 1980 and counting), its political power also decreases. In 1980, one out of four voters was from a union household. In 2020, union households represented only 15.8 percent of voters.

Yes, organized labor should go all in for labor law reform, using every ounce of political capital to pass the legislation. Winning it will require getting the parochial political agendas of the sixty different unions behind this demand. But if the Democratic Party balks at reform as it has in the past, or if Donald Trump wins a second term, then labor will need a backup plan. Ultimately, changing the political dynamic will require unions to draw on their most potent source of power: workers withholding their labor and disrupting production and the economy. And that in turn will require unions to spend their considerable financial resources on organizing and strikes rather than padding their portfolios.