Credit: Roman Samborskyi / Shutterstock
After years of declining membership, unions have an opportunity to garner support with a new generation of workers. A report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that U.S. front-line workers’ attitudes toward labor unions are softening, which could have a significant impact on worker advocacy among people under 30.
“The Rise of the ‘Union Curious,’” co-authored by an MIT Sloan professor of management emeritus, also found that fewer nonunion workers oppose unions than in the past.
The research comes at a pivotal time for unions. In 2023, a record 450,000 workers went on strike, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In recent months, high-profile strikes among organizations as varied as Boeing, Starbucks, and the International Longshoremen’s Association have underscored union activity.
That activity marks an uptick for a movement that has long been in decline, Kochan said.
Unions experienced a golden age after the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 through the 1950s, and public sector unions continued to grow through the 1960s.
“But the private sector unions have declined precipitously. They’re now down to [representing] about 6% of the private sector labor force,” Kochan said in an interview. “Clearly, a different model or a model that expands on what they’re doing now is needed if that number is going to turn around.”
Of 2,500 younger workers surveyed by the Worker Empowerment Research Network, over 45% were determined to be “union-curious.”
Together with University of California, San Diego professor John S. Ahlquist and University of California, Berkeley associate professor Jake Grumbach, Kochan analyzed survey data collected in 2022 under the auspices of the Worker Empowerment Research Network, an independent, interdisciplinary network of labor market researchers. The authors also analyzed similar surveys dating from 1977.
Their recent data focused on front-line, post-pandemic workers in industries known for low wages, scheduling instability, and recent unionization pushes: health care, hospitality, retail, telecommunications, and warehousing.
The researchers found that more than 45% of 2,500 younger workers surveyed are “union-curious,” meaning they are open to, but uncertain about, the possibility that unionization could improve their lives. This is an influential group that will help to determine whether current union activity will lead to sustained worker gains.
Here’s what the labor movement needs to know about swaying this key demographic, Kochan said.
Nonunionized workers under 30 are key for union support. Among the nonunionized, younger workers are more supportive of unionization at their workplaces than their older colleagues: Forty percent of nonunion workers age 30 or under said they are outright supporters, whereas 32% of their older colleagues expressed the same view.
Education seems to play a role in the degree of receptivity to unions, Kochan said. “We found that there’s a very high degree of interest in learning about unions, and possibly joining unions, among young workers who are reasonably well educated but may be underemployed,” Kochan said.
This group includes baristas and retail workers, who often confront unstable schedules and whose wages haven’t kept up with the cost of living.
“These are young workers who are not realizing their expectations after finishing their education, whether that’s high school or college, which leads them to either move from job to job or be frustrated with their opportunities,” Kochan said. “They don’t know much about unions because they didn’t grow up in a world where many family members were unionized.”
Nonunion workers who feel they lack a voice are more likely to support unionization. Some workers indicated that they are eager for a sense of autonomy that unions could potentially provide. These workers expressed feeling a lack of influence over working conditions such as benefits, pay, promotions, safety, and scheduling.
The researchers describe this phenomenon as a “voice gap.” As the gap increases, uncertainty about unionization declines. Workers who reported a lack of voice across those domains were nearly 20 percentage points more likely to support unionization and 13 percentage points less likely to oppose it than workers who reported having enough voice.
Unions need to expand their areas of reach in order to resonate with modern workers. While majorities of nonunion workers have positive views of unions in general, there are still areas of substantial ambivalence.
Related Articles
Historically, the labor movement has focused on improving wages, hours, and working conditions. Today’s workers have different expectations for unions than in generations past, Kochan said. Greater clarity could cement their support.
“In most cases, today’s workforce certainly wants better wages, working conditions, and schedules,” Kochan said. “But they also want protections against discrimination. They also want a voice in what the organization they work for stands for. They want a bit of a broader agenda, and they have to figure out whether unions can address those broader issues.”
In Kochan’s view, pro-worker groups remain too focused on the issues typically covered by collective bargaining. “If the labor movement really wants to grow, it’s got to broaden the portfolio of ways in which it represents workers,” he said.
This includes expanding awareness among potential constituents of issues unions can advocate for, including paid leave, protections against discrimination, family-friendly workplaces, and flexible schedules. These issues can extend to the way new technologies are deployed. As strikes by the UAW, the Writers Guild of America, and the International Longshoremen’s Association have shown, workers are concerned about how robotics and artificial intelligence will affect their jobs.
“Unions have got to find ways to cover more issues and advocate for those issues in ways that provide more sustained, continuous services and representation,” Kochan said.
Read next: Why worker voice is the secret to successful AI implementations
