Posts tagged November elections
AFL-CIO leader braces for GOP takeover of Congress
September 2, 2022 // The AFL-CIO has its sights set on gaining one million new members over the next decade, or 100,000 per year. It currently boasts a membership of more than 12.5 million workers, down from its all-time high of nearly 20 million in 1979. Overall, far fewer workers are a member of a labor union. The membership rate declined in 2021 to 10.3%, offsetting the previous year’s gains, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Labor unions are hot, but their moment may not last | Los Angeles Times
August 29, 2022 // About 1 in 10 American workers is in a labor union, down from a peak of more than 1 in 3 in the mid-1950s. Government workers are five times more likely than private-sector employees to be in a union. Yet even as experts acknowledge the newfound excitement around labor, they caution that unions, which have suffered decades of declining membership, are unlikely to turn the tide. Unions’ moment of opportunity could already be slipping away. Republicans are poised to gain seats in the November elections. And a potential recession could wipe away the rare leverage workers have held in the tight labor market that emerged in the wake of the pandemic. Jon Shelton, a labor historian at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay