Workers are Voting to Join Unions at Record High Rates
Workers are voting to join unions at the highest rate in 15 years, finds an analysis out this morning from the progressive Center for American Progress.
It's a reflection of increased grassroots momentum behind organizing — helped along by a strongly pro-worker National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), under Biden appointee Jennifer Abruzzo.
Workers voted in favor of a union 74% of the time this year (through April) — a jump from 2019 when it was 69%.
In 2023, there were 1,777 union elections — the highest number since 2010, when there were 1,942.
Under President Joe Biden, the NLRB has streamlined the rules around union elections — cutting the time between petition and voting. The agency also withdrew a Trump-era proposal that would have excluded private college and university student workers from unionizing — driving a wave of graduate student organizing. These elections tend to have very high win rates, a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute finds.