During 2022, the share of American citizens who participated in unions dropped to an all-time low of 10.1 percent. This is despite the prevalence of movements seen in the news in recent years, such as the unionization attempts of multiple Starbucks stores and Amazon facilities. While these happen to be at the forefront of our minds when we think of today’s unionization efforts, overall attempts to increase unionization horizontally across different industries have been relatively unsuccessful. This is part of a trend of continuous drops in participation over successive years. All the way back in 1983, union participation rate was approximately one in five workers, which is a lot higher than the approximately one in 10 workers who participate in unions today. Out of all the countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2019, the United States ranked third-lowest in union membership — only Lithuania and Estonia had lower union membership rates. Meanwhile, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden all reported union participation rates of over 50 percent.
Many presuppose that the justification for less union membership is due to the irrelevance of unions themselves. In a society where white-collar workers have steadily replaced blue-collar workers — often taking jobs in firms and corporations with decent salaries and health care — there is simply no need for a union advocating for the worker and likely creating tension between the employer and the employee. But, my friends over at the Binghamton University School of Management, I don’t think you’re safe from the unions yet. The rights of workers still take precedence over the right to profit within your hearts, even if employers try to remove this human instinct from you. The workers in America are suffering for a number of different reasons today, and I believe rebuilding our unions can still help us improve the workplace.
Why has union participation in the United States been declining for so long? Well, I have already hinted at it a bit. The first reason could be structural change in the way the workforce is distributed between the private and public sectors. There has been a divergence between union participation in the public and private sectors, which has been a continuous trend since the 1970s. In fact, the private sector participation rate was 6 percent in 2022, compared to a much higher public sector participation rate of 33.1 percent. A general explanation as to why this trend has such a significant impact on the strength of unions is a simple analysis of demand and supply on the macroeconomic scale. The demand for the products that blue-collar workers produce has dramatically decreased domestically, while the demand for services such as consulting, law and other white-collar practices has dramatically increased. Additionally, the movement of many industries and workers to the anti-union Republican South has definitely exacerbated the decline. Presuming that more workers now work in private sector industries, it is also the case that firms with unionized workers often have smaller profits than those firms without unionized workers due to a high wage differential between unionized and non-unionized workers. Management of these firms probably will fight back against unions in their industries in order to protect profit margins. Finally, it is also true that government and employer compensation has increased for white-collar workers over the years. If you can get a job in a law firm, for example, you will likely receive better health care benefits and a higher wage relative to those who participated in the same job years ago. This advances the idea that unions might not be as important in the same ways as they used to be.
So, one might ask, what are we to do about this? Apparently, if the private sector is designed to make unions unsuccessful, the only way we can seek to expand union participation is by replacing private firms with public ones. However, this is not the case. While it may be true that government control of corporations and firms would likely bring with it immediate increases in union participation and strength, this is an entirely unrealistic solution in a country that loves capitalism and profits. Instead, the solution should neither seek to increase the traditional work that unions do in the blue-collar field nor publicly advocate for the breaking down of private industries and firms. Instead, unions should focus on advocating for the ways that workers’ livelihoods can be improved in white-collar sectors. While wages are higher and white-collar workers are more likely to get better government assistance and private health insurance, there is still much suffering to be had.
Unions can break into the white-collar industry through an emphasis on policies like parental leave, child care and more flexible work schedules. The United States is obviously an outlier when it comes to the flexibility of work and the ability of a new parent to leave the firm temporarily while being paid, and this continues to cause many workers anxiety and suffering. Unionized workers would be better equipped to fight for greater workplace protections that don’t just have to do with wages or safety. Arguably, one’s ability to have sick leave without worrying about being fired or just being able to care for their newborn child without having to worry about reduced pay or suspension is just as important.
Additionally, unions can expand their roles as bargaining agents to act as advisors, mentors and job counselors. Many students fresh out of college are left in the dark about where to go or whether they are being treated fairly compared to workers at other firms. Unions have vast amounts of data and knowledge, and distributing this knowledge to white-collar workers could also increase their relevance. One very interesting change that might reduce the tension between employers and employees and, in my mind, complement the white-collar workplace much more than its alternative, is workplace slowdowns. Rather than having white-collar workers at private firms strike, they instead complete their job requirements at a very slow rate, almost as slowly as possible without triggering a firing due to their performance.
Unions need to step into the 21st century, a century filled with more and more white-collar workers and increasingly fewer blue-collar workers. This is not to say that the union movements at Amazon or Starbucks are any less important — in fact, they are strong signals to other workers that they should try to fight for their rights. But if we want all workers to have better non-wage rights, we need our unions to come back stronger than ever before, and this begins with the protection of white-collar workers.
Sean Reichbach is a junior double-majoring in economics and philosophy, politics and law.