A professional approach
Organized labor seizes opportunity by pursuing disgruntled white-collar workers
For some occupations, union membership is ticking up, despite an overall drop in unionization of the U.S. workforce, a new report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found. The number of people working in management, professional and related jobs who are in a union rose by 94,000 to 6.27 million in 2019, compared to 6.18 million in 2018 — a 1.52% increase.
That may not seem like much, but overall union membership has been heading the other direction — falling to 14.6% in 2019 from 20.1% in 1983, when the first comparable data became available.
“We’re seeing a great interest in organizing across the country, especially among professional workers,” said Ethan Miller, research and outreach manager at the Department for Professional Employees, a Washington D.C.-based coalition representing 24 national unions.
People working in unionized management and related professional occupations reached a four-year high in 2019, Mr. Miller said. The traditionally white-collar jobs driving the increase include construction managers, marketing managers and administrative services managers.
The total number of wage and salary management workers rose by 1.2 million to 56.5 million between 2018 and 2019, without proportionate gains in unionization, so the share of people in the sector was unchanged at 12.8%, according to the Department of Labor statistics. The report was based on a survey of 60,000 U.S. households.
Among the professional workers who chose union representation was Rachel Masilamani, 43, a librarian at the Downtown branch of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. In August, librarians and staff members voted to be represented by the United Steelworkers. Preparations are underway for contract negotiations.
“It seems very natural for us to work together collectively,” said Ms. Masilamani, who has a graduate degree in library sciences from the University of Pittsburgh. “It just seemed like a natural fit to speak our minds and find solutions together.”
She said fairness in compensation among co-workers was a priority. “Yes, money is always a concern,” she said. “But can I be effective in my role if the people who support me are worried about how to make ends meet?”
The number of unionized employees working in education, training and library occupations increased 1% to 9.2 million in 2019 from
9.1 million in 2018, while the proportion of unionized workers in the category declined by the same percentage to 3.05 million.
The 2018 Supreme Court decision, Janus v. AFSCME, was expected to hurt state, local and public employee unions by eliminating the required “agency fees” paid to unions by people who opted not to join. AFSCME gained nearly 28,000 members in 2018, even as the union lost more than 110,000 agency fee payers, according to a May 2019 review by online news platform Politico.
A review in February 2019 by the New York City-based think tank Manhattan Institute found that unions in state and local government lost 54,000 members after the ruling — a decline of less than 1%.
Higher wages are not always the first priority when workers think about organizing, said Maria Somma, director of organizing at the USW. Increasing control in what can be a production-driven work environment can also be an incentive.
“Those who do the work know best how to fix the problems,” she said. “At one time, the voices of professionals were listened to. That’s just not the case now. The practice of their work as professionals is being limited by corporate interests.”
Union organizing efforts began last year among graduate assistants at the University of Pittsburgh, therapists at Lawrenceville-based Persad and Google subcontractors — all traditionally white-collar jobs.
“Support for unionization occurs when there are issues in the workplace,” said Angela B. Cornell, founding director of the Labor Law Clinic at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, N.Y. “It’s not always money. It can be dignity, respect, health care costs.”
At the moment, unions enjoy favorable ratings with the general public. A recent Gallup poll found 64% of Americans approve of labor unions — up 16 points from 2018. The poll was based on a survey of 1,024 adults in every state and the District of Columbia.
Choosing union representation can be easier in public workplaces, such as universities and municipal government offices, Ms. Cornell said. “Public sector workers generally don’t face the same kinds of intense opposition to unionization as private sector workers, so it’s easier to organize,” she said.
But unions have also been making some inroads with private employers, which was the case with Google subcontractor HCL Technologies Ltd. About 80 HCL employees voted for USW representation in September.
While the computer and mathematical occupations’ workforce nationwide rose 4% to 5.1 million workers in 2019 from 4.9 million the previous year, the sector’s unionization rate jumped 8.3% to 196,000 in 2019 from 181,000 in 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Other USW campaigns in 2019 included efforts to organize 2,000 teaching, research and other assistants at the University of Pittsburgh, which the union lost in a narrow vote in April. A Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board examiner determined that Pitt had engaged in unfair labor practices and ordered a second vote, which the university is contesting.
The USW succeeded in getting 23 therapists, program coordinators and administrative staff at Persad Center, a Lawrenceville social service agency that focuses on the LGBT community, to back unionization. Contract negotiations are anticipated in mid-February.
A Persad board member wondered if collective bargaining was really the answer to employee concerns.
Charity Imbrie, a retired lawyer and Persad board member for 3½ years, said the vote could hardly have come at a worse time for a small agency serving the LGBTQ community: the Persad board was wrestling with difficult finances and discussing a merger with East Liberty-based Allies for Health + Wellbeing, a bigger agency with a similar mission.
“We’re dealing with leadership struggles, it’s been tight financially and we’ve been trying to keep the doors open,” Ms. Imbrie said. She conceded the challenges may have contributed to the union push. “... We lost sight of keeping in good touch with employees.”
Still, she regretted the divisiveness within the organization that she said the union vote created.
“The thing that’s different about all this is we all care about Persad and we all have the same mission and we all care about our clients,” Ms. Imbrie said. “It really would’ve been helpful to not have this us-versus-them mentality.”