Member-only story
A Turning Point for Unionization is at Hand With Recent Gains & Legislation
In January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported union membership in the United States in 2021 to be at 10.3 percent while the number of unionized workers continued its decline to 14 million.
To put that into perspective, in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the unionization rate was 20.1 percent with 17.7 million union workers.
One of the intentional casualties of 40 years of neo-liberal Reaganomics is the precipitous drop in public-sector unions.
But we might finally be entering a unionization renaissance.
Earlier this month, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren re-introduced a bill from 2017 and 2020, the “Nationwide Right to Unionize Act,” that would repeal Section 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, and make illegal right-to-work-for-less laws that prohibit unions from collecting dues from non-union members covered under union contracts.
In a press release published on her website, Sen. Warren explained:
“Twenty-seven states have enacted ‘right-to-work’ laws that prevent unions from collecting dues from non-union members who are covered under a union-negotiated contract. These laws make it more difficult for workers to form unions and fight…
