Note: This post was modified on Friday, January 5 to include new information about job creation in 2023 provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' December employment situation report.
When the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Union Members–2023 survey results on January 23, I predict the union density rate will have increased. Historic times call for bold predictions. There’s mine (or, at least, one of mine). I justify my optimism below.
This is the 40th anniversary of BLS’s union members survey. Its goal was to establish a consistent means of measuring the number of U.S. wage and salary employees who are union members, the number of these employees who are represented by unions, and the percentage of these employees who are members of or represented by unions over time. Goal achieved. The union members survey is the definitive measure of union membership in America. BLS’s survey undeniably has some flaws, but they are not fatal. Despite those flaws, the union density rate is an important yardstick for measuring the labor movement’s strength in the American economy and our society. For this reason, BLS’s annual report launches a lot of expansive pronouncements and definitive predictions about the future of workers, worker power, and unions.
What Happened Last Year?
Those predictions and pronouncements have been terrible almost every year for decades. That’s because the union density rate has consistently shown that union members are a declining share of the American workforce, with a blip here and there, like in 2020 when the pandemic changed the math. As I explained last year, BLS calculates union density using a simple fraction. The total number of U.S. union members is the numerator (i.e., the top of the fraction). The denominator (i.e., the bottom of the fraction) is all U.S. wage and salary employees, both public and private sector. In 2022, the numerator was 14.285 million union members and the denominator was 141.673 million total employees. Hence, the U.S. had a union density rate of 10.1% in 2022, a decline from 10.3% in 202 1.
The union density rate was only part of the story in 2022. Union membership increased by more than 270,000 --- the first increase since 2017. Any increase, especially a six-figure increase, should have been cause for celebration in the labor movement and among its supporters. Ironically, the celebration was squelched by other good news for workers: 5.28 million wage and salary jobs added to the U.S. economy. Simply, the union density fraction’s denominator grew by a larger percentage than the numerator, so the fraction’s value decreased and the union density rate declined. Slap a muzzle on those celebrations.
Is the same thing going to happen in 2023? I doubt it, and that’s why I am confident making a bold prediction that the union density rate will increase in 2023.
The Basic Math
Let’s start with the basic math. In 2023, the U.S. economy created 2.7 million jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest employment situation report. BLS excludes self-employed workers from the denominator of the union density fraction for an excellent reason: these workers cannot join or organize unions. So, the denominator --- total wage and salary employment --- certainly grew by fewer than 2.7 million workers. Nonetheless, let’s keep the math simple by using that number.
Here's the key calculation. In order to maintain a union density rate of 10.1% (i.e., the 2022 level) in 2023, the labor movement would have had to add about 272,700 members in 2023 --- that is, 10.1% of the new wage and salary employees in 2023. That’s essentially the same amount of membership growth the labor movement produced in 2022. Unions almost certainly needed a somewhat larger number of new members to make up for membership losses, but we will discount those losses, again, so the math stays fairly simple.
Support for My Prediction that Union Density Grew in 2023
So, did unions add more than 273,000-ish members to their rolls in 2023? Did they do better in 2023 than 2022? The union members survey will offer a definitive answer. I believe the answer will be “yes.”
Several indicators give me confidence:
NLRB Elections: Unions have added more members in this most traditional way. The number of workers successfully organized through National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) elections increased by more than 31,000 to 78,750 in the last fiscal year (not the same as the calendar year, but nine months overlap). Of course, this number does not include elections held among federal, state, or local government employees. Also, these NLRB results do not include the last calendar quarter of 2023. The number of workers organized through representation elections was certainly meaningfully higher.
Recognition, Voluntary and Otherwise: Some unions are able to organize new members through voluntary recognition by employers. My sense from watching media and social media reports is that the number of workers organized in this way also increased in 2023, although perhaps not as dramatically as the elections number. Not-so-voluntary recognitions also may have increased in 2023. In August, the NLRB issued a new rule in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific decision requiring that employers presented with union authorization cards signed by a majority of their employees in one of their work units must either recognize and bargain with the union, or file a petition for a NLRB election. The election petition will put a lot of employers in the same position as if they had voluntarily recognized because Cemex Construction Materials also held that any serious unfair labor practice committed by the employer during the election campaign would result in a NLRB bargaining order --- that is, the employer must recognize and bargain with the union. Some employers may choose to avoid the uncertainty and recognize their employees’ union. Are these numbers large? No. But every little bit takes us closer to the goal.
Growing Unionized Businesses: As unionized businesses grow, so does union membership, and without the struggles associated with elections and employer recognition. This is the reason every building trades union leader with whom I have spoken this year is planning for dramatic near-term membership growth. President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Sciences Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act will inject hundreds of billions of dollars into construction in the U.S. That process has already begun. With pro-worker, pro-labor protections like project labor agreements and prevailing wages included in those laws and their implementing rules , unionized contractors can expect to get a disproportionate share of that work. According to my informal conversations, building trades unions’ apprenticeship programs have already grown substantially this year. Apprenticeship program growth means union membership is growing too. LIUNA President Brent Booker said during our Labor Day blogcast that his union’s goal is to reach 1 million members --- a near doubling of its membership --- in ten years. He also said the growth has already begun.
The U.S. economy has added more than 670,000 construction jobs since President Biden took office including 192,000 in 2023. Construction has a higher-than-average union density rate, so there is good reason to believe a sizeable share of these construction jobs are union jobs. Result: substantially more building trades union members contributing to a higher union density rate.
Filling Vacant Jobs: Unions can increase their membership, again without an election or employer recognition, if unionized employers fill vacant jobs. This was the goal of AFSCME’s “Staff the Front Lines” campaign and tour during 2023. State and local government employers were seeking to fill 834,000 open jobs as of October 2023. State and local governments have a union density rate more than five times that of private-sector employers, so understaffing is likely correlated with fewer union members and hiring with many more. With a bus tour, engagement with public officials, and other promotional work, AFSCME recruited workers to apply for jobs with unionized public employers. If the AFSCME effort was at all successful, many of those new public employees will become, or maybe already are, union members.
The Teamsters addressed this same issue in their new contract with UPS. The agreement requires creation of 7,500 new Teamsters jobs and hiring new employees for 22,500 existing unfilled jobs. This hiring will increase union membership at UPS --- already the country’s largest private-sector bargaining unit --- by almost 10%. While it is unlikely all that hiring happened in 2023, some portion of it probably did.
Organizing in Represented Units: Unions can add members by signing up employees already working in union-represented bargaining units. This kind of growth drove a nearly 20% increase in federal-sector union membership associated with the excellent work of President Biden’s Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment and his appointees at the Office of Personnel Management during the Task Force’s first 18 months. Among other things, OPM worked with federal agencies and departments to facilitate unions’ access to and communication with federal employees, including new employees. Twenty percent growth represents only a small percentage of the federal employees in existing bargaining units who could join their union by simply signing up. From my conversations with federal employee union presidents, I believe this rapid rate of growth continued through 2023.
Creating More Unionized Employees: Unions can increase their membership by requiring their employers to convert contract workers who cannot be union members to employees who are. According to top-notch Bloomberg labor reporter Josh Eidelson, that’s precisely what the Communication Workers of America persuaded Condé Nast, the LA Times, and Microsoft to do. These are yet more employees who become union members without an election or employer recognition. Deals of this sort are part of a larger effort to reverse the long-term trend of employers fissuring their employment relationships to avoid directly employing workers. Fissuring contributed to declining union density. Strengthening and expanding direct, full-time employment contributes to producing more union members.
These six active union membership growth strategies give me confidence that union density grew in 2023. I would be surprised if any of these strategies alone produced 273,000 or more union members in 2023. Taken together, I think it’s likely --- I would say highly likely --- that union membership grew substantially in 2023.
Conclusion: Defining Success
Last year, I expressed the view that, if BLS’s union member survey reported any growth in union membership, the labor movement should declare success. The union members survey for 2022 showed growth; so, 2022 was a success according to my measure. The five-year streak of decline was broken. Unions were bigger. More workers had the protection of worker power and collective action at the end of the year than at the beginning.
Of course, not everyone agreed. In particular, blogcast guests AFA-CWA President Sara Nelson and Cornell ILR School Senior Lecturer Kate Bronfenbrenner disagreed when we discussed last year's union members survey soon after its release. They felt the labor movement should have grown substantially more, especially given that 71% of workers viewed it favorably at the time. I understand their sentiment. I expect to hear it repeated this year, as well. For 2023, I agree we should expect more. The question is, how much is enough? In 2022, unions took a big step in the right direction. In my view, they needed a larger step in the same direction in 2023. Any larger step, especially if it increases the union density rate at all, will allow momentum to continue to build. That's good enough for me.
I expect we will hear another objection. For some observers, the labor movement's only measure of success is whether it can slay giants like Amazon, Starbucks, and Apple's retail stores. Unions' organizing successes and bargaining frustrations at these companies have been widely discussed, including by me. Americans love a compelling David and Goliath story. These organizing drives provide them. The companies are gigantic, wealthy brand names. The workers are, well, ordinary working people trying to feed their families. Fueling the attention and narrative, some of the companies have notorious billionaire owners or leaders who cannot resist explaining to workers why they are wrong to want unions while their companies serially break the law. These organizing drives have made a powerful case for both unions and the real need for labor law reform. As a result, regardless of the results of the union members survey, the argument will be made that workers winning unions and contracts from these giants is the most important measure of success. Increases in aggregate membership, this argument will suggest, is not enough to show that labor can stand up to the real power in America.
Of course, I am also rooting for David. But most modern-day Davids need reinforcements. The central premise of the labor movement is that Goliath can't win against an army of Davids. More union members means more power, more public support, and more resources to continue organizing and fighting the fights that need to be fought. That's true if the union members are warehouse workers, baristas, and retail workers, but it is also true if they are plumbers, government employees, truck drivers, and tech workers. Accordingly, success should mean increased union growth and worker power. I believe that's the path to more victories in the future.
