Will Young, Well‐​Educated Workers Lead aUnion Revival?

pa href=https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson hreflang=undWalter Olson/a
/p

p“After decades of declining union membership, organized labor may be on the verge of anbsp;resurgence in the U.S.” a href=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/17/briefing/union-drives-college-graduates.htmlclaimed/a the emNew York Times/em last week, echoing dozens of similar claims lately. But how solid is the case for such anbsp;union comeback, and if it happens is it likely to be broad or narrow? emThe Economist/em invited me to write anbsp;guest column on the topic, which was a href=https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2022/07/18/unions-are-now-a-lifestyle-choice-for-some-workers-says-walter-olsonpublished last week/a./p
pspanspanI begin with figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which found the share of American workers belonging to unions fell last year, not rose, from 10.8% to 10.3%, back to its 2019 share and far below 1983’s 20.1% or the all time peak of 34.8% in 1954. Overall, union membership in the United States fell last year by 241,000 to 14 million. /span/span/p
pspanspanHow can this be so when we keep reading stories about organizing drives at high‐​profile workplaces? Unions have lately signed up workers at media outlets like emVox/em, emBuzzFeed/em, /span/spanspanemNew York /emmagazineem /em/spanspanspanand the /span/spanspanemNew Yorker/em/spanspanspan, as well as at well‐​known advocacy and arts /span/spanspanspannonprofits./span/span/p
pspanspanWhat’s going on here, Inbsp;argue, may owe more to culture than to questions of pay and promotion. Sectors hit lately with union ferment tend to have youthful, well‐​educated and aspirational workforces. “Many of these jobs attract anbsp;generation whose members often have strong opinions on social issues, and perhaps see the workplace as more than just the vehicle for anbsp;paycheck.” After years of looking for anbsp;breakthrough in fast‐​food organizing, unions found it not at, say, Kentucky Fried Chicken but at Starbucks. /span/span/p
pRelatedly, the emNew York Times/em in its a href=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/17/briefing/union-drives-college-graduates.htmlinterview/a with labor reporter Noam Scheiber notes that “college‐​educated workers have been heavily involved” in recent organizing drives, often “people with radical politics taking jobs with the explicit intention of organizing workers.” Scheiber’s example is anbsp;Rhodes Scholar who “wore anbsp;Karl Marx sweatshirt at Oxford”; back stateside she proceeded to take anbsp;job as anbsp;barista at anbsp;Buffalo Starbucks, successfully organizing fellow workers there and then reaching out to other outlets of the same chain. (The campus‐​radical‐​to‐​union‐​star pipeline, to be sure, is a href=https://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2010/0910early.htmlhardly/a a href=https://www.nhregister.com/news/article/Wilhelm-once-a-campus-star-now-a-constant-thorn-11688494.phpnew/a.)/p
pThe column, which is paywalled, tackles many other angles of the subject, from public opinion to the role of government worker unions. The takeaway: unions are getting anbsp;boost of sorts from being seen as vehicles for social justice, but anbsp;campaigning view of social justice is not anbsp;majority taste, even among the young and mobile. “spanspanThere’s anbsp;reason organizers report more success among staff at national environmental organizations than among, say, drywall installers, anbsp;sector employing 140,000.”/span/span/p