Union Density Is the Cause of and Solution to Our Problems

What it means to take that seriously.

Louder for the people in back. (Photo: Getty)

Union density. Union density. Union density!

What is the reason for our problems? Union density. What is the answer to our problems? Union density. What explains our plagues? Union density. What must our goal be? Union density.

Everybody should be talking about union density. Always. Union density—the percentage of the work force that is represented by unions—has been declining since the middle of the 20th century, almost without pause. In the 1950s, one in three American workers was a union member. Today, it’s only one in ten. This decline goes a long way to explaining our half century-long rise in economic inequality, the slow collapse of our civic society, the enormous fortunes in the hands of a small number of billionaires, the capture of our electoral politics by money, and more. Union density has been crushed so the power of working people has been crushed and unions have less economic and political power and as a result corporations and the rich have more power. And here we are.

For the same reasons, increasing union density is a key to reversing all of those deleterious trends. Many regular people can see the ways that our society is socioeconomically broken, but they are not exactly sure what to do about it. The simplest and most elegant answer is: increase union density. This will increase the power of working people and decrease the relative power of corporations and the rich, put more wealth in the pockets of the working class, and create political power that can be used to do things like “give everyone health care” and “tax the rich”—policies that would themselves help to fight inequality, but which have proven to be politically impossible when the working class has less political power than the rich.

I wrote a book about this if you’re interested in a longer discussion.

Despite its importance, union density doesn’t get a lot of attention in mainstream political discourse. I’m always keeping an eye out for new UNION DENSITY FACTS. And this week we got some: a new report from the Economic Policy Institute that quantifies what would happen if we could triple union density—if we could once again make 30% of the work force union members, as they were in the mid-20th century.

Among the findings of the report (bolding added):

• “If we tripled union density from 10% to 30%, the real median wage for all workers (including both union and nonunion workers) would rise from $25.67 in 2025 to $29.39 per hour—a 14.5% increase. A full-time, full-year worker earning that wage would see annual pay rise by more than $7,700.”

• “Assuming the 14.5% wage boost we estimate from a tripling of union density applies to the bottom 80% of the U.S. workforce, this would raise these workers’ combined pay each year by $1.2 trillion.”

• Unions also bring benefits to health care coverage. “If union density tripled and all states were high-density states, the national nonelderly uninsured rate would fall by about a quarter, from 9.8% to 7.3%.”

• Unions help ensure that workers get their unemployment benefits when they’re eligible. “In recent years, the average UI recipiency rate in high-union-density states was 36%, double the 18% rate in low-union-density states.”

• Economic research has established that increasing union density raises wages even for non-union workers, because all companies in the market have to compete with unionized companies for labor. Because the economy-wide benefits of union density don’t really kick in until it hits 15%, EPI says, they are probably underestimating the economic benefits: “Below 15% union density, a one percentage point increase in density is associated with just a 0.2% increase in the median wage; above 15%, the median wage increases by 0.9%—a wage response more than four times as large.”

Note that the huge economic benefits from this increase in union density would happen without any new taxes on the rich or other direct redistributive government action. They would happen because workers would have more power, and they would use that power to collectively bargain for a fairer share of the wealth they produce. Unions, as a solution to our political and economic problems, do not require some omniscient policy expert to determine the right solution for every working person in every place. They simply give working people the power to advocate for themselves in a way that actually works for their particular situation. Mass unionization produces infinitely more nuanced and workable solutions than any other path to reform.

You think we got it hard? Striking union coal miners, Lick Creek, West Virginia, 1922. (Photo: Getty)

But How?

The incredible benefits of increasing union density are clear. Okay. Great. How do we do it? This is where we see more clearly the problems inside of the labor movement itself. EPI’s report lays out a purely legislative path to increasing union density: Pass the PRO Act to reform America’s anti-worker labor laws, and enact another federal law to give collective bargaining rights to all public sector workers nationally. They also advocate laws guaranteeing annual cost-of-living raises for all union workers, and automatic collective bargaining in any company where the CEO-to-worker pay ration exceeds 100-1.

Neat. Good ideas. Please wake me up when we can pass any of these laws.

Next year will be the 80th anniversary of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, the bad bill that created anti-union “right to work” laws and gave businesses the tools they have used to cause the long decline in union density in the first place. Eighty fucking years, and the labor movement and its political allies have not repealed this bill. Should we? Yes. The PRO Act would do the job. But saying “we should triple union density” and then saying “the path to doing it is to pass a bunch of laws that there is no indication we can pass” amounts to magical thinking. It is, in fact, precisely the strategy that organized labor has been leaning on for decades now, with futility.

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I am not trying to sound combative here. I support all of these laws! Unions should continue their efforts to get them passed! The thing is, we need a serious plan to increase union density in the meantime. That, unfortunately, does not exist. Liz Shuler, the head of the AFL-CIO, was on the press call for the EPI report. I asked her what the path is to raising union density absent these legislative changes. She said that we need “multiple strategies,” including targeting individual states and using them as laboratories for reform. “We are fighting on all fronts. But we need the air cover of policy change and legislation. It’s not the end all be all, but we know how broken labor law is in this country.”

EPI’s Heidi Shierholz pointed out that public approval of union is at 60-year highs, far higher than it was under Obama, when the last major Democratic push for labor law reform fell short. So there are rational reasons to say that we are in a new moment that is more promising for legislative reform. Still, the fact remains that while we certainly do need labor law reform, history tells us that we shouldn’t expect to get it, even though we will continue to fight for it. The labor movement cannot subordinate itself to Congress. We need a concrete strategy, controlled by us, that we can pursue until the “holy grail” of legislative reform happens.

In short, what the labor movement has the power to do now is to massively increase funding for new union organizing. The real meaningful conversation, for those who take the idea of increasing union density seriously, is “where are we going to get the money to do the organizing we need to right now?” Much of the money is already sitting in the coffers of major unions, who just have to decide to spend it on organizing. More of it can come from the private sector, which has not been adequately tapped for this purpose. And more of it can come from the government, which can commit to funding union organizing alongside other legislative priorities.

The public should know that union density is vital, an answer to our most pressing problems, something to be focused on and talked about and pursued. Politicians should know that labor law reform must be a top, top priority for Democrats when we retake the White House, and that we are going to have to eliminate the filibuster to get it, and politicians unwilling to do that should suffer our wrath.

But the labor movement itself needs to be talking about: Where are we getting our first billion dollars for the big organizing push? If we are not talking about this, we are not taking seriously our obligation to give all workers access to a union. Not really. Therefore, we are failing. We cannot blame the evil bastards of corporate America for our decline if we are not actually trying to do the things that might turn it around.

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• Related reading: How the Government Can Help Build Industrial Unions; Ten Times This; Your Money Is On the Table.

• EPI is a great research organization and you can read their full report here. You can order my book about the labor movement, “The Hammer,” from an independent bookstore here. You can contact EWOC for help organizing your own workplace here. You can donate to support union organizing drives here.

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