Union Organizing and Collective Bargaining at a Critical Moment: Opportunities for Renewal or Continued Decline?

Since the 1950s, union membership and collective bargaining in the United States have declined. Union density, the percentage of the workforce belonging to unions, peaked at 34.8% in 1954 and fell steadily thereafter. The most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics' report on union membership indicated that, in 2021, union density was 10.3%. Union density in the private sector workforce was reported to be 6.1% (lower than it was in 1890). In absolute numbers, total union membership stood at 14 million, down from 21 million in 1979.

Union decline over the past 50 years is due to a number of factors that have negatively reinforced each other. Notable factors include structural shifts in the economy, employer opposition, weak labor laws, legislation that has substituted for union protection, the growth of human resources, and the inability of unions to respond to institutional threats with new and successful organizing and political strategies. But a number of contemporary developments suggest a revival of interest in unions. Before COVID, workers experienced less input than they expected and desired. Because unions are the main mechanism for providing workers with a greater voice in the workplace, this voice gap provides an opportunity for union growth.

The voice and representation gap is evident in the many organizing drives taking place in previously unorganized sectors, such as fast food, retail, warehouses, high tech, and digital media. Unions, union organizing, and collective bargaining may finally see a change in fortune after decades of stagnation and decline.

Contributors:
Jai Abrams, Yale University; Jacob Apkarian, York College; Ariel Avgar, Cornell University; James N. Baron, Yale University; Dale Belman, Michigan State University; Michael H. Belzer, Wayne State University; Timothy Chandler, Louisiana State University; Clifford B. Donn, Le Moyne College; Adrienne E. Eaton, Rutgers University; Mark Erlich, New England Regional Council of Carpenters; Rafael Gely, University of Missouri; Ray Gibney, Penn State Harrisburg in 2007; Rebecca K. Givan, Rutgers University; Frank Goeddeke, Jr., Wayne State University; William A. Herbert, Hunter College and National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions; Daniel J. Julius, Case Western Reserve University, Rutgers University, and Yale University; Brenda J. Kirby, Le Moyne College; David Lewin, UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management; Adam Seth Litwin, Cornell University; Marick F. Masters, Wayne State University; Michael Schuster, Syracuse University; Joseph van der Naald, University of New York Graduate Center; Tingting Zhang, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Paul F. Clark is a professor of labor and employment relations at Penn State. His research interests include employment relations in the US healthcare industry; union structure, government, and administration; union member commitment and participation; and new union member orientation and socialization. He is the author of four books, including Building More Effective Unions. His research has appeared in leading scholarly journals in industrial and labor relations and applied psychology. Clark regularly teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on employment relations. CHad personlark has worked with unions in Pennsylvania and around the United States on labor education programs and research projects for over 35 years.
John T. Delaney is vice president for academic affairs at Saint Vincent College. He has served in a variety of university administrative positions since 1996. Delaney is an expert in business education, with a background in labor–management relations, especially public sector labor relations and dispute resolution. He has written extensively on collective bargaining, negotiations, dispute resolution, and union political action as well as issues related to ethics in business. Delaney has given expert testimony to the National Labor Relations Board and the Subcommittee on Labor of the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.
Howard R. Stanger is a professor of management in the Wehle School of Business, Canisius University. His research has focused on historical and contemporary labor relations in printing, newspapers, and digital media. Stanger also has published articles and book chapters on Buffalo's Larkin Company, employers' associations, and other business and labor history topics. This is his third contribution (2002, 2013, and 2024) to IRRA's/LERA's annual research volume on industry-focused collective bargaining.