Laboring Daily

This Labor Day, Gallup finds support for labor unions to not only be the highest in my lifetime, but the highest dating back to 1965.

Seventy-one percent of Americans now approve of labor unions. Although statistically similar to last year's 68%, it is up from 64% before the pandemic and is the highest Gallup has recorded on this measure since 1965.

These data are from Gallup's annual Work and Education survey, collected Aug. 1-23.

The latest approval figure comes amid a burst of 2022 union victories across the country, with high-profile successes at major American corporations such as Amazon and Starbucks. The National Labor Relations Board reported a 57% increase in union election petitions filed during the first six months of fiscal year 2021.

Support for labor unions was highest in the 1950s, when three in four Americans said they approved. Support only dipped below the 50% mark once, in 2009, but has improved in the 13 years since and now sits at a level last seen nearly 60 years ago.

Sixteen percent of Americans live in a household where at least one resident is a union member. This includes U.S. adults who report that they themselves are a union member (6%), those who say someone else in their home is a member (7%), and those who say they and someone else in their household belong to unions (3%).

The net 16% union household figure is within the 14% to 21% range Gallup has recorded since 2001.

Gallup also polled union members and nonunion members June 13-23 in a separate online Gallup Panel survey about union membership.

Membership is highest among front-line and production workers, of whom one in five (20%) are union members.

About one in 10 workers in healthcare and social assistance (13%), white-collar positions (11%), and administrative and clerical roles (10%) are union members.

Workers in managerial roles (6%) are the least likely to be members of unions.

 

That sharp drop for union support in 2009 was from the auto bailout battle, when Republicans like Mitt Romney demonized the $17.4 billion bailout of the industry that saved a million jobs, and blamed the UAW.

Some 13 years later, unions have more than recovered their reputation, and today they are more important than ever.

Support for unions needs to be matched by union participation, though. The problem remains that the majority of non-unionized workers say they have no interest whatsoever in joining a union.

That needs to change.