Today, the U.S. labor movement is a shadow of its former self.
Union membership has declined dramatically since labor's heyday in the 1950s, when roughly a third of the U.S. workforce was unionized. Last year, only about 14.3 million Americans, or 9.9% of the total wage and salary workforce in the U.S., were in a union, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics.
That raises the question: In today's economy, where reasonable work hours, paid-time off and protection against unfair dismissal have become the norm for most workers, can a weakened labor movement survive and thrive?
Sharon Block, a professor of practice at Harvard Law School and a former member of the National Labor Relations Board, is optimistic, saying Americans are increasingly seeking a counterweight to excessive corporate power, and a revitalized labor movement is a natural contender.
Veronique de Rugy, the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University , say unions don't serve the modern worker well in their current form and their decline will continue as a result.
YES: Americans Are Getting Warier of Corporate Power
By Sharon Block
There is little doubt that the U.S. labor movement is facing an existential crisis.
The percentage of private-sector workers who belong to unions has fallen to around 6%, lower than it was before joining a union became a federally protected right in 1935. Meanwhile, the Trump administration recently stripped almost a million federal workers of the right to join a union and engage in collective bargaining, a not insignificant number.
Still, there are a couple of reasons to be optimistic about the future of unions in our country.
First, the labor movement historically has been the best mechanism for moderating the excesses of capitalism, and more Americans are recognizing how concentrated and unrestrained corporate power is hurting them. Second, unions are getting more innovative, bringing new workers into their movement and giving them new models for achieving their goals.
Steady approval
According to a recent Gallup poll, the percentage of U.S. adults who view capitalism favorably has fallen to 54% from 60% just four years ago, and only 37% of U.S. adults have a positive view of big corporations. The percentage of respondents who have a positive view of unions, however, has held steady at around 70% since 2021. These numbers suggest that the public wants a way to have more control over corporate behavior, to ensure capitalism's benefits are widely and fairly shared.
In its current state, the U.S. labor movement isn't capable of serving in that role. But the necessity of having such a counterweight, and the choice of the labor movement as the obvious contender, is getting more bipartisan attention these days than at any time in recent memory. Conservative populists such as Sen. Josh Hawley, for example, have been building the case that Republicans should support a revitalized labor movement. He recently co-sponsored legislation with Democratic Sen. Cory Booker to prevent employers from dragging their feet on initial contract negotiations once a union wins a representation election.
That doesn't mean finding a middle ground between the progressive and conservative versions of labor-law reform will be easy. But the consensus on at least the need for reform is a reason for optimism.
Creative strategies
The creativity unions are demonstrating in their battle to survive, meanwhile, also gives me confidence.
Take the burgeoning movement to organize Uber and Lyft drivers. Last year in Massachusetts, voters approved a measure -- initiated by large unions such as the Service Employees International Union and the International Association of Machinists -- to give Uber and Lyft drivers the ability to unionize and collectively bargain while maintaining their status as independent contractors, a class of worker excluded from the National Labor Relations Act under both Democratic and Republican administrations. The system works for this unusual workforce by allowing drivers to collectively bargain as an industry rather than with each company individually. Similar rights were recently extended to these drivers in California.
Unions also have been experimenting with new models of negotiating that bring union, business and government representatives together to the bargaining table to set wages and other labor standards for an industry. By removing wages from the competition equation, this bargaining model prevents employers from blaming unions for their decisions to close businesses or relocate to low-wage locations. It also creates a forum for employers, unions and local government agencies to collaborate on training approaches for workers in specific industries, a role for unions that has long generated bipartisan support.
The idea that organized labor's challenges are due to a misalignment between its political and economic agendas and the interests of the workers it represents gets it exactly wrong. We live in a time of rising political and economic inequality, and the two dynamics are closely linked. Since unions are the only mechanism by which workers can aggregate their political power, any suggestion that organized labor's role in politics isn't serving workers well is to suggest that workers should cede even more ground to the interests of the wealthiest individuals and corporations.
The labor movement will continue to face roadblocks, especially with an antiunion administration in control in Washington. But rising inflation, unemployment and AI-driven automation will make it clearer than ever for workers that supporting unions is their best bet to take back control of their own futures.
Sharon Block is a professor of practice at Harvard Law School and a former member of the National Labor Relations Board. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.
NO: Unions Aren't Helping Workers
By Veronique de Rugy
Every few years, pundits predict a union comeback. The narrative is familiar: a pro-union administration in Washington -- traditionally Democratic, though the current Republican one is making overtures, as well -- a few successful strikes and a spattering of headline-grabbing organizing drives. On the surface, unions appear poised for a renaissance.
But the data tell a much different story as membership continues its long descent. Despite public approval toward labor unions in polls, the much-ballyhooed revival isn't materializing because unions in their current form no longer serve workers' interests.
Last year, union membership fell to the lowest level on record. Even high-profile contract victories by the United Auto Workers (UAW) at Ford Motor, Stellantis and General Motors, and organizing wins at some Starbucks stores, haven't slowed the downward trend.
Half of all union members today work for the government, where 32.2% of employees are unionized compared with just 5.9% in the private sector. Even membership in the UAW, once numbering 1.5 million, is now under 400,000 and falling, and more than a quarter of its current members work in academia.
This shift highlights how far unionization has strayed from its original purpose and shows why a union resurgence may be wishful thinking. Unions now represent some of the most privileged, well-educated and politically protected workers in America, not the broad, struggling workforce that wants a say in the economy and a way to keep big corporations in check.
Monopoly power
Today, every worker, unionized or not, enjoys safeguards that were once the crown jewels of organized labor. But rather than reinvent itself to attract more members, the labor movement has largely turned to politics, funneling hundreds of millions of dollars toward political activity and lobbying -- with most of the contributions going to Democrats.
Unions have every right to engage in the political process but given their coercive nature -- 26 states allow unions to require union fees as a condition of employment -- political engagement can look less like insurance for career security and more like involuntary financing of a partisan machine, whether or not the workers agree with the politics.
The only reason union representation levels are as high as they are is because U.S. labor law grants unions monopoly power over entire workplaces. Once certified, a union represents all workers, even those who never voted for it, and seldom faces re-election. Even in right-to-work states, workers who opt out of union membership are still bound by the union contract and barred from negotiating on their own behalf.
Adding insult to injury, unions in their current form haven't served the modern worker well. A review of the research by my Mercatus Center colleagues shows that the wage gains unions win often come at the expense of slower employment growth, reduced investment at firms that employ union workers and higher risks of plant closures tomorrow. In other words, the union wage premium exists only as long as your job doesn't disappear.
Freedom of association
Unions' attachment to the traditional 9-to-5 model also has put them at odds with the ballooning population of mobile and independent workers, who value flexibility above all else and don't want to become full employees if it means losing control over their hours.
Despite a few modest organizing wins involving Lyft and Uber drivers in Massachusetts and California, unions won't have much success attracting gig workers into their fold if they try to force them into full employment status, which a faction within the labor movement is trying to do.
The way to truly empower workers isn't to revive the old union monopoly but to give workers genuine options. That means giving workers the freedom to choose the representation they want and demand results. It means allowing workers who opt out of unions to negotiate their own contracts directly with their bosses.
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December 15, 2025 13:04 ET (18:04 GMT)
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