Young workers give unions new hope
After decades of decline, U.S. unions have a new reason for hope: younger workers.
Workers in their 20s —— and even in their teens —— are leading ongoing efforts to unionize companies large and small, from Starbucks and REI to local cannabis dispensaries. The Alphabet Workers Union, formed last year and now representing 800 Google employees, is run by five people who are under 35.
Multiple polls show union approval is high —— and growing —— among the youngest workers. And U.S. union membership levels are even ticking upward for workers between 25 and 34, even as they decline among other age groups.
Between 2019 and 2021, the overall percentage of U.S. union members stayed flat. But the percentage of workers ages 25-34 who are union members rose from 8.8% to 9.4%, or around 68,000 workers, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Young workers say they see unions as the best way to combat wage inequality and poor working conditions. For some, personal heroes like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders —— a vocal labor advocate —— have piqued their interest in unions. Others say the coronavirus pandemic caused them to rethink what they deserve from their jobs.
“Whatever this is isn’t working,” said Adriana Alvarez, 29, a McDonald’s employee in Chicago. “We obviously need change.”
When a union organizer first approached Alvarez in 2014, she was skeptical of his goal to raise her pay to $15 per hour. At the time, she was making $8.50 per hour and hadn’t gotten a raise in three years.
But she got involved with the Fight for $15 labor group, organizing protests and learning about her rights. McDonald’s workers still aren’t unionized, but she says her managers are more respectful and have stopped illegal practices, like making workers reimburse the restaurant if they accidentally accept counterfeit money. She now makes $16.70 per hour.
Like many of her peers, Alvarez didn’t grow up in a union household. U.S. union membership peaked in 1954, when 35% of workers belonged to unions. By last year, that had fallen to 10.3%.
Some of that decline is due to shrinking numbers in sectors with high unionization rates, like the auto industry. But states and courts have also steadily chipped away at unions’ power.
Twenty-seven states now have “rightto-work” laws, which prohibit a company and a union from signing a contract that requires workers to pay dues to the union that represents them. And last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1975 California regulation that had allowed union organizers to meet with agricultural workers on company property.
Against that backdrop, unions last year saw some of their biggest increases among young workers in utilities, the motion picture industry and the federal government, said Hayley Brown, a research associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a nonpartisan think tank.