Labor statistics show that this is a hopeful time

As Fall arrives, it’s natural to look back on the year as it winds down. In 2022, 2,510 union-election petitions were filed with the National Labor Relations Board, NLRB records show – up 53% from 2021.

Also up – exactly 53% – is this year’s increase in labor’s work stoppages, according to Cornell University’s Labor Relations School.

The UAW has 25,000 workers out, Screen Actors Guild/ American Federation of Television and Radio Artists 160,000, Kaiser Permanente health workers almost 80,000, plus 53,000 Unite Here workers in Las Vegas, and, seemingly, dozens of other union workers, totaling well over 300,000 Americans on strike – plus hundreds of workers at Amazon and Starbucks signing cards and winning recognition.

Positive change is genuine.

Nurses and autoworkers, baristas and railroad workers, hotel workers and teachers, Teamsters and pharmacists, office and clerical staff, and workers in libraries and entertainment and universities and warehouses all are moving on sharing the fruits of their labor.

Their demands go beyond wages, too. They’re building clout to press for safety, for home lives, for financial inequality, for patients, for justice for all.

Labor seems more willing to take risks and face facts, to be more creative and bolder – and more successful.

“Workers are more aggressive now,” said Thomas Kochan, co-director of the Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s School of Management. “They see that there's a possibility of negotiating for better terms. They see successes in some settlements that are coming in, that wage settlements in negotiation are higher than they've been in decades. And so they're emboldened, and they're taking more direct action.”

Although new leaders chosen by rank and file voting – Shawn Fain (UAW), Sean O’Brien (Teamsters) and Fran Drescher (SAG/AFTRA) – have made a difference, 2023’s “Strike-tober” shows an approach that’s shifted from top-down to bottom-up. Power is coming from below, concedes the union-busting firm Littler Mendelson, which reported, “There has been a shift in how people are organizing together to petition for representation. What was once a top-down approach, whereby the union would seek out a group of individuals, has flipped entirely. Now, individuals are banding together to form grassroots organizing movements where individual employees are the ones to invite the labor organization to assist them in their pursuit to be represented.”

The climate’s more conducive, too, after many months of a tight labor market, inflation, and increasing public awareness of the stark economic differences in our economy – where workers struggle and corporate boards’ pay and companies’ profits soar. All that’s combined to spark growing public support.

Gallup and other polls show some 70% of Americans approve of organized labor – 91% of Democrats, 69% of Independents, and 52% of Republicans. Even more of the population that’s “Gen Z” (those born between the late-1990s and early-2010s) view unions favorably: 88%.

Issues as well as ideals might be attracting younger adults.

“More and more young people in particular … are realizing if you care about climate justice and income inequality and worker dignity and reproductive freedom and racial equality and immigrant rights, there is no better place to be than in the labor movement,” Washington State Labor Council’s April Sims told the Northwest Labor Press. “Our work is at the center of all of those things.”

In addition to approving organized labor in general, the U.S. public in particular backs legislative goals pushed by the labor movement, according to polling by Data for Progress, which this summer show popular support of initiatives including the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, a paid sick-leave measure, and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Leo Leopold of the Labor Institute, headquartered in New York City, said, “For the first time in a generation the labor movement is held in high esteem by the American public. It is widely understood that working people need the protections only collective bargaining can provide.

“This puts unions like the UAW at the forefront of the struggle to protect jobs and the environment,” he continued.

And within organized labor, support runs across sectors; Painters and Communications Workers have shown up on UAW picket lines in acts of solidarity, for example.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said all of this shows strength and momentum, which can contribute to consequences for even more progress.

“The activism of the UAW, the Writers Guild, SAG-AFTRA, the Teamsters, flight attendants, Amazon warehouse workers and Starbucks workers is so important,” he said. “In a very real sense, these workers are representing all American workers. If they win, they’ll energize other workers, even those who are not unionized. They’ll mobilize some to form or join unions.”

Indeed, on the heels of the Teamsters’ forceful, successful negotiations with UPS, the union is increasing its activity in bolstering organizing efforts at Amazon, and other new organizing – from workplaces upward or traditional unions accelerating action – is growing, from flight attendants at Delta Air Lines and UFCW at cannabis dispensaries to Communications Workers at Microsoft and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union at REI locations.

It's a hopeful Autumn.