These days, unions have more luck organizing press conferences than actual workers.
A year ago, the presidents of the AFL-CIO and SEIU — two of the country’s largest labor organizations — announced a joining of forces, with the express purpose of growing their rank-and-file. They put out a press release claiming the partnership would “unleash a new era of worker power.” One year later, that era has still not arrived.
New Census Bureau data shows private-sector union membership remains at an all-time low, with just under 6% of American workers handing over dues. Adding insult to injury, labor appears to have lost ground in key industries (such as hospitality) where it has invested eight- and nine-figure sums.
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Consider coffeehouse workers. Starbucks Workers United — a subsidiary of the SEIU — began organizing baristas in 2021, first in Buffalo, New York, and now across the country. The union’s efforts were covered in the front pages of the country’s largest newspapers; Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) even hauled the company’s CEO before a committee hearing to explain why he had not rolled out the red carpet for organizers.
But five years in, the union’s brew has gone bitter. Fewer than 5% of Starbucks employees working in coffeehouses are represented by Workers United, and after four years, these workers still don’t have a contract with the company. A number of baristas have initiated legal proceedings to kick the union out of their workplace, a process known as decertification.
On last year’s annual strike, known as the “Red Cup Rebellion” — where workers are urged to walk out and customers to stay home — the company saw one of its biggest sales days of all time in North America.
At least the SEIU’s Starbucks union has something to show for its efforts. The union can’t say the same for its more than 15-year campaign to organize fast food restaurants.
The union launched its “Fight for $15 and a union” campaign in 2010, spending more than $100 million on the theory that winning a $15 minimum wage would cause workers to unionize. Sixteen years on, the union has convinced primarily “blue” cities and states to adopt its wage policy, but still has not has a successful fast-food organizing campaign.
The latest data shows us that only 1.8% of restaurant workers are currently part of a union.
The cost of that campaign is measured in more than money: One study found that the $15 wage demand cost roughly a quarter million young and entry-level workers their jobs, as employers adopted automation and otherwise shed jobs to adapt to the higher costs.
Visible consequences of lofty promises are a key reason unions have struggled to deliver on lofty rhetoric.
There’s no clearer example than the United Auto Workers, who face perhaps the worst reputational problem in all of organized labor. Historically known for saddling the Big Three auto companies with unwieldy wage and benefit requirements, the union more recently is notorious for the number of leaders who have faced jail time. Current President Shawn Fain, elected to clean house, is himself under investigation by a court-appointed federal monitor.
Potential members of the union are paying attention.
Three years ago, the UAW promised to add 150,000 new autoworkers in the south, through an organizing investment of $40 million. But of the 14 non-union automakers the union targeted, only Volkswagen, with a single plant in Tennessee, has joined up — and with a contract that falls far short of the union’s promises.
In fact, the union has had to turn to grad school workers, lawyers, and museum employees to expand its ranks. Today, only about half of the UAW’s members actually work in the auto industry.
Unions simply make less sense in today’s dynamic and modernizing workforce. Private-sector membership has plummeted 70% since its peak in 1980.
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In the age of artificial intelligence, unions should have little trouble convincing workers to join their ranks with the promise of job protection alone. But the bureaucracy and inefficiency baked into one-size-fits-all union contracts make them increasingly unattractive. Ironically, rapid advancements from AI and other technologies make what unions are offering even more irrelevant.
As it turns out, no amount of money or clever rhetoric can return labor unions to their former glory.
Michael Saltsman is executive director of the Employment Policies Institute. Charlyce Bozzello is communications director of the Center for Union Facts.