The organized labor renaissance has waned slightly as union membership dips to a historic low, but unions still wield plenty of clout as the presidential campaigns try to woo blue-collar workers.
After decades of eroding influence, labor unions had reasons to be optimistic heading into the election year. Labor drives at iconic companies such as Starbucks and Amazon, the Biden administration’s pro-union stance and increased public support for unions gave labor leaders hope that they had turned a corner.
Union membership, however, has continued to decline. According to the most recently available data from the Labor Department, it fell to a record low of 10% in a red-hot labor market that added 2.7 million jobs last year. The number of nonunion jobs grew faster than unionized positions.
Private-sector union membership has been flat at 6% over the past few years, and the public-sector rate has dropped to 32.5%.
Despite the membership declines, 70% of Americans said in a recent Gallup poll that they have a favorable view of labor unions, the highest percentage in 57 years.
Unions also have sustained some high-profile defeats, especially in the South.
Workers at two Mercedes-Benz factories in Alabama voted against joining the United Auto Workers. In Miami, teachers are weighing a vote to dismantle their union.
The National Labor Relations Board has become an aggressive pro-union advocate under President Biden, but federal courts have struck down several of its rules to make organizing easier. In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Starbucks in a labor dispute. The decision makes it harder for the federal government to crack down on what it considers to be employers’ anti-union practices.
“Labor is in a gradual and continued decline. Its membership has continued to shrink, especially in the private sector, the National Labor Relations Board’s rulings are severely insufficient to compensate for the churn in annual membership and strike activity is relatively small,” said Marick Masters, who teaches labor and political action at Wayne State University. “Labor has shown nothing to me that it is in a position to reverse the structural forces that are contributing to its decline.”
Despite the setbacks, the union vote is arguably the most hotly contested this election season.
In the battleground states of Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, roughly 15% of employees have union representation. The total number of union workers in all three states exceeded the margin of victory in those states during the 2016 and 2020 elections.
In 2020, Mr. Biden won 57% of the union vote in swing states and President Trump received 40%. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, would need to at least match Mr. Biden’s total to win the November election.
“Even with a smaller percentage of union members nationally, there is a lot of clustering of union workers in the Great Lakes region of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania,” said Robert Bruno, director of the Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “In a close race like this one, organized labor will really make a difference.”
Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, and Ms. Harris understand their success in the election hinges on their ability to win swing union voters.
A record 20% of delegates to the Democratic National Convention this year were union members. All delegation members stayed in union hotels, and union members did almost all of the convention work in Chicago, including building sets and carpentry.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain was given a prominent speaking role at the convention. In a fiery anti-Trump speech, he ripped off his sports jacket to reveal a red T-shirt that read, “Trump is a scab.”
In their first few campaign events, Ms. Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have held public rallies with unions and addressed organizations such as the UAW and the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Mr. Walz, a former member of the National Education Association, is the first union worker on a presidential ticket since Ronald Reagan, a Screen Actors Guild member, in 1980.
After Mr. Biden’s withdrawal from the race, Ms. Harris received endorsements from the AFL-CIO, UAW and other influential labor organizations.
Ms. Harris still needs to define herself to unions because she doesn’t have the decades of tight relationship with labor that Mr. Biden has. Mr. Biden has spent years honing his “Union Joe” brand and repeatedly brags that he is the most pro-union president in history.
Mr. Masters said labor unions’ failure to save Mr. Biden’s candidacy illustrates their waning influence. In the weeks before Mr. Biden dropped out of the Democratic nominating contest, unions, including the AFL-CIO, issued statements of support for the embattled president.
“If you look back at 40 or 50 years ago, Democratic leadership would have wanted the approval of labor before dropping a candidate from a ticket,” he said. “Here, they didn’t have much of a seat at the political table. It was the big donors that had a say.”
Once a reliable Democratic voting bloc, unions have splintered since Mr. Trump first ran for office. Union leadership has backed Democratic candidates, while some rank-and-file members went for Mr. Trump.
Paul Clark, a professor of labor and employment relations at Pennsylvania State University, said union leaders are working hard to persuade members to support Ms. Harris by arguing that their unions will be stronger economically under a Democratic administration. Still, he said, leaders haven’t taken positions on the social and cultural issues, such as immigration, that have drawn workers to Mr. Trump.
“These social and cultural issues are so powerful, the union members aren’t walking away [from] Mr. Trump, even as union leaders make the case that they are better off under a Democratic administration,” Mr. Clark said.
Not all union bosses have endorsed Ms. Harris. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien last month became the first labor leader in history to address the Republican National Convention in its 121-year history. He praised Mr. Trump as “one tough SOB” and added to the tension by noting that Democrats declined to let him speak at their convention.
Two weeks later, Mr. O’Brien lashed out at Mr. Trump after the former president joked with Elon Musk in a conversation on X about firing striking workers. Mr. O’Brien issued a statement calling Mr. Trump’s remarks “economic terrorism.”
Mr. Fain filed a complaint with the NLRB accusing Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk of unfair labor practices. The Harris campaign highlighted the complaint.
Mr. Trump has also worked to attract Big Labor. In January, he attended a Teamsters rank-and-file presidential roundtable and boasted that several of his big real estate projects were built with Teamster labor. He also vowed to give union leaders “a seat at the table” in exchange for an endorsement.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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