Labour unions in the United States have seen a major decline since the 1980s. According to Bureau of Labour Statistics data, more than 20% of workers belonged to a union in 1983 (the first year such data was available). In 2022, that number had fallen by half.
The decline, which many experts attribute to employer-friendly policy change, an increase in right-to-work laws that weaken employees’ organising and collective bargaining power and a trend towards outsourcing, has left the United States with one of the lowest union densities among major economies.
But even with membership on the decline, worker support for unions has risen. In August 2022, Gallup recorded the highest levels of union support since the 1960s; 71% of Americans approve of labour unions, and about one in 10 non-union workers said they were “extremely interested” in joining one.
High-profile labour efforts have dominated headlines: in recent years, workers at Amazon, Starbucks and several universities have organised. The Writer’s Guild of America and actors’ union SAG-AFTRA remain on strike over demands for wage and benefit increases, along with protection from evolving AI.
And among those on the frontlines are the nation’s youngest workers leading the renewed push for labour unions. Gen Z is, according to the Center for American Progress, “the most pro-union generation alive today”.
“I think there’s a growing understanding that if you have a job, you need a union,” says Jaz Brisack (pictured above). The now-26-year-old was one of the earliest leaders of union efforts at Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, in 2021.
Gen Z’s involvement and support for organised labour makes sense considering the context of their experiences, says Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labour education research and a senior lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labour Relations, US.
“First of all, they grew up being told they were going to be better off than their parents,” she says. “The fact is, they struggled to find jobs, and the jobs they found were not as good as their parents’. They and the generations that follow them are saddled with college debt. They’re looking at a world where they wonder if they should even have children because of climate change. They’re concerned about broader social issues like reproductive rights and gun control, and planning to hold governments and employers accountable on those issues.”
Young workers strike at the Manhattan headquarters of publisher HarperCollins in July 2022 (Credit: Getty Images)
Some company practices during the pandemic, adds Bronfenbrenner, increased Gen Z workers’ enthusiasm for unions: low-income employees, service workers and workers without a higher educational degree had difficulty accessing personal protective equipment (PPE), health care and paid sick time on the job.
Reports from the Economic Policy Institute show that, in 2020, just upwards of 10% workers deemed “essential”, including those in the retail sector, were covered by a union contract. Workers who were represented by a union, meanwhile, were more likely to access internal and external mechanisms to advocate for safety and health concerns.
“Many of these workers were on the front lines,” she says. “When they asked for something as simple as some PPE, or time off to take care of their family members, or to not come to work when they were sick, employers said no. Workers are willing to put up with a lot but risking your life and your family’s lives – that’s too much, and I think that was the final straw.”
Brisack, who uses they/them pronouns, says their employment at Starbucks amid a pandemic-related job shortage moved them to feel “nothing is coming to save us”. It inspired them to try to generate their own solutions, and was key to their organising efforts, which involved many Gen Zers and supporters.
Brisack now believes in the power of unions to create equality among what they see as an inequitable power structure, saying, “I think people are looking back and seeing that what actually created improved standards of living in the past was union density, and they’re more open to ideas about organising.”
Gen Z vs the world
Baby boomers had plenty to draw them together, says Bronfenbrenner, as the generation “got very involved politically with civil rights, the women’s movement and the anti-war movement”. But in the late 1970s, “it shifted very dramatically, and there was much more focus on taking care of yourself and making money”.
Researchers widely consider Generation X to be significantly more independent and self-reliant; and millennials, according to empirical research, are the most individualistic generation of all. Gen Z, on the other hand, appears to be the collective generation.
A multi-year Stanford University research project, the findings of which are detailed in the book Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age, determined the group born between the mid-1990s and 2010 is highly collaborative. Brisack believes since Gen Z feels they’ve been collectively let down by society, many feel it’s necessary to act as a group to improve things.
Signs of customer support at the Starbucks Workers United hub in Buffalo, New York, during the unionisation effort in 2021 (Credit: Getty Images)
Gen Z-driven unionisation efforts also tend to be marked by the generation’s passion for social causes, and their demands reflect it, says Bronfenbrenner. “There’s this term, ‘organising for the common good’,” she says. She points to several moments; for instance, in the spring, striking teachers in California demanded sustainability initiatives and better care for homeless students. “The Starbucks workers demanded their employer take a stand on LGBTQ rights,” she adds.
But Gen Z organisers don’t only have new demands; they’re also organising new industries, including hourly wage positions that haven’t traditionally been covered by union protections.
“When we first started taking on Starbucks, there were a lot of people in the union world who were like, ‘this is not a good target. This is not reasonable’,” says Brisack. “Because it’s tiny workplaces and a company that’s going to fight it, and really high turnover so you’re reinventing the wheel every few months.”
Large corporations may also have the power to launch widescale anti-union campaigns and messaging that can be difficult for small-scale organisers to overcome. But while many Gen Z organisers like Brisack have realistic expectations about what unionising in service industry jobs can – or can’t – accomplish, they still find it worthwhile.
“Obviously, we’re not going to get pensions and a lot of things that unions were able to get in the past in some industries – at least not without really, really solid union density,” they say. “But I think we can change the standard of living from, ‘these are poverty jobs’ to being able to have a career and be long-term workers in these roles without sacrificing a standard of living.”
Efficient organisers
Beyond being enthusiastic about organising, Gen Z is also just plain good at it.
Their tactics have evolved faster than companies’ union-busting efforts, and Gen Z-led protests have drummed up major public attention and support. Organisers at the media outlet Business Insider, for instance, utilised a robust social media campaign; some experts say this technique catalysed executives to recognise the union after a 13-day strike.
This social innovation can offer a kind of insulation against employers’ efforts to prevent unionisation, says Bronfenbrenner. “Creativity puts the employer off guard because the workers are having fun. They’re not supposed to be having fun when there’s an anti-union campaign; they’re supposed to be scared and intimidated. When unions do creative things like use memes, it turns that whole climate of fear and conflict on its head.”
A Writers of America East and SAG-AFTRA picket outside NBCUniversal in New York City in August 2023 (Credit: Getty Images)
And Gen Z’s mastery of social media and multi-platform communication helps create widespread public support, she adds.
Data from the Pew Research Center research has shown public sentiment towards corporations is increasingly negative. And the public is more likely to support workers moving against them, she says even when it creates inconveniences like TV shows’ new seasons being postponed, or UPS packages being delayed. “There’s a public who is willing to make sacrifices for workers’ rights,” says Bronfenbrenner.
Finally, what makes Gen Z workers in service industries and low-wage jobs the ultimate organisers, she adds, is that they’re far less affected by traditional union-busting techniques because they don’t care all that much about getting fired. “These companies already don’t offer them pensions or long-term promotional tracks. They already move around from job to job, so getting fired is not the same threat,” believes Bronfenbrenner.
Change or trend?
Even amid a declining rate of unionisation, most Americans believe unions are good for workers. And despite years of pro-employer legislation at the federal level, in late August, the treasury department issued a report that showed unions were good for the economy. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen wrote that unionising “could contribute to reversing the stark increase in inequality we’ve seen in recent decades, promoting economywide growth”.
Whether recent organising efforts will translate into change at a systemic level, or a return to the kind of union density America saw in the last century remains to be seen.
Brisack believes the unionisation of high-churn service industries creates momentum. “People might be moving from one job to another, partly because of the industry being a high-burnout, high-exploitation industry, but people are going to take the union principles with them,” they say. “Once you’ve been through one union campaign, it’s a lot harder to just accept exploitation or unfair conditions, or having no voice in future workplaces.”
Bronfenbrenner says larger developments may be brewing. There’s been a changing of the guard at the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB), the independent federal agency that provides protections for private-sector employees, she points out, and those running the agency “are responding to their job very differently, and decisions keep coming down that are making organising easier”.
But those positions are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate, adds Bronfenbrenner. “All of this can change with a new administration and Congress. The question is, can this moment outlast that? Will these young people get motivated to make sure change is happening beyond just their workplace? Will they get discouraged when the change doesn’t happen fast enough?”