American unions can’t bargain with the inevitable

Picking at scabs. America’s union movement has come a long way since cobblers and lear workers first organized to demand higher wages in 1794. It hasn’t exactly been a smooth journey. That first fateful burst of activity fizzled when factory owners filed a lawsuit that eventually led to massive financial burdens falling on members of union. Today, unions are protected by U.S. laws that cover collective bargaining. Even so, employers are on track to take upper hand.

Restive employees felt ir oats in 2023, with Starbucks baristas, Hollywood actors and auto-workers at Ford Motor and General Motors among those who downed tools and exercised ir right to organize. Even some employees at mega-lender Wells Fargo voted to unionize – something that’s almost unheard of in banking. And re are decent reasons for worker frustration. After a surge in 2020, inflation-justed wages have dropped, staging sharpest fall in nearly seven deces, albeit still higher than y were before Covid-19. At same time, workers face new personal risks. number of deaths on job, for example, were a fifth higher in 2022 than in 2009.

Support for unions – as a concept at least – is still high, too. According to a Gallup poll last September, two-thirds of Americans approve of labor unions, up sharply from a low of 48% in 2009. Yet ir actions don’t seem to match ir feelings. Participation in unions has actually decreased, as has frequency of work disruptions. In 2022, share of workers who were unionized was 10.1%. This was a 23.4 percentage point decline from its post-World War Two peak. For reference, around 67% of Danish workforce is unionized.

failure of more employees to join unions is a combination of can’t and won’t. Over time, laws have steily been enacted to make unionization efforts more difficult. Taft-Hartley Act, passed in 1947, outlawed “closed shop” arrangements, where employers would agree to hire only union members. Around that time, several states opted so-called “right to work” laws, which prevented employees from being compelled to join a collective bargaining group. In recent years, option of right-to-work laws has increased at a faster rate, and now more than half of all U.S. states have m.

As politics becomes more divisive, unions become a target, because ir supporters tend to lean Democrat. According to a poll conducted by think tank GBAO Strategies, roughly 91% of Democrats under age of 50 support unions while just over 50% of Republicans do. Nearly a third of Republican workers polled oppose going on strikes. Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis last year signed a state bill that stops public employers from deducting union dues directly from paychecks, making participation slightly more cumbersome.

For workers, cost of joining a union may be rising, not just because of moves to make doing so less convenient, but also because employees in some cases run risk of being penalized for even considering it. While it’s illegal for companies to restrain or coerce people who want to exercise ir rights to organize, employers often still find ways to exert soft pressure. For example, grocer Trer Joe’s shut down a store in New York in 2022, and according to National Labor Relations Board, it was because employees tried to organize. store recently opened again, but people who work re are presumably now less inclined to think about joining forces.

And if an employee is putting ir job on line, y’d want to know that y have a high chance of success if ir union does throw down against management. That depends a lot on industry dynamics, though. Successful walkouts came in industries where employees have “striking power.”

Auto workers generally do have that power. Ford has just nine plants in United States, and making a car takes several days or weeks. Carmakers also sit within a complex network of suppliers and vendors such that disruptions ripple widely and painfully. During last year’s prolonged strikes, Wells Fargo estimated that disruptions at plants this year would cost Ford $320 million of operating income by end of week three. That’s about 3% of company’s estimated annual total.

Compare a strike at Starbucks, say. Sure, coffee chain’s North American stores bring in about $27 billion of revenue annually. But re’s more than 10,600 of m. Not only is it hard to organize a disparate workforce. re’s also little cumulative impact from latte not poured.

Even in industries where strikes have potential to cause more damage, demographics might be unfriendly. Auto workers skew older: average age is 43 versus restaurant worker, who is 29 years old. Fewer employees above age of 50 support unions than those under age of 50, according to GBAO. Political allegiance is shifting too. Affiliates of UAW used to contribute a negligible amount to Republicans; in 2020, y stumped up roughly a third of what y gave to Democrats, according to OpenSecrets.

That leaves unions in a difficult position, with workers unable to join in some industries, and perhaps less willing even in situations where y might make a difference. For all efforts of those 18th-century shoemakers, footwear manufacturing ultimately got shipped elsewhere. History is likely to deal U.S. unions a similarly harsh hand.