More workers move to create unions — but that doesn’t always mean more members
More workers move to create unions — but that doesn’t always mean more members
Members of well-established unions have walked off the job in recent months: Hollywood writers and actors, autoworkers and health care workers, just to name a few. But more employees are banding together to create new unions too.
Data from the National Labor Relations Board released on Friday shows the number of union petitions filed in the past year — from October 2022 to September of this year — rose 3%. That’s on top of a whopping 53% increase the year before.
More union petitions doesn’t immediately mean more union members, however.
The tight labor market is making workers more comfortable with circulating petitions to unionize, according to Gordon Lafer at the University of Oregon.
“People are less scared about being fired than they normally would, which is normally one of the biggest things that makes people hold back,” he said.
But a petition is just the first step in a process that a lot of union efforts don’t complete; there’s a union election, then contract negotiations, Lafer noted.
“There’s fall off at every one of those stages, he said.
Under President Joe Biden, the NLRB — which oversees that process — has become more labor-friendly. But with an uptick in petitions, they’re facing a larger workload, per the agency’s general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo.
“We are under-resourced, we are underfunded, so it does put a strain on us,” she said.
And more union drives are likely, said former NLRB Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce, because of disruptive technologies like AI and electric vehicles.
“New technology has caused workers to have to rally to take a stand and mark their space,” he said.
That gives unions a strong case, Pearce added — even if getting a contract remains difficult.
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