Seventy percent of Americans approve of labor unions , according to a Gallup push poll released this week. Naturally, Big Labor’s allies in the media are touting the poll as evidence that unions are having their biggest moment since the 1960s.
In reality, workers are fleeing unions in droves despite the Biden administration’s best efforts to force workers into unions. Any “momentum” for Big Labor is a media fantasy. An all-time low of 10% of the American workforce was unionized in 2023, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1983, 20.1% of workers were unionized. Only 6% of private sector workers were unionized in 2023.
Democrats have a vested interest in forcing workers to join unions, as the overwhelming majority of Big Labor’s political spending goes toward electing members of that party. Big Labor spent at least $1.8 billion electing the Biden-Harris ticket and downballot Democrats in 2020. Biden has lived up to his promise to be “the most pro-union president in American history” by weaponizing federal agencies for Big Labor’s benefit.
Despite the Biden-Harris administration’s best efforts, Big Labor’s few wins have typically been followed by crushing defeats. Workers at Amazon’s JFK8 narrowly voted to join the Amazon Labor Union after the National Labor Relations Board tipped the scales in the ALU’s favor just a week ahead of the election. Thanks to the NLRB’s malfeasance, the JFK8 election may be voided. The United Auto Workers successfully organized a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, but the y lost decisively at a Mercedes plant in Alabama a month later.
Since workers are clearly not buying what union bosses are selling, Big Labor has resorted to strongarm tactics to capture as much of the workforce as possible. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien recently terminated a “no-raid” agreement with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which allowed Teamsters organizers to poach IAM members at will.
To stanch the bleeding, IAM is attempting to unionize new industries and launched the “Pharmacy Guild” in November 2023. The Pharmacy Guild has a large social media following, which has allowed the media to paint the Guild as the new frontier of union organizing. Yet again, the data destroys the media narrative — approximately 30 of America’s 320,000 pharmacists have joined the Guild. There is no evidence supporting the Guild’s claim that they will organize 90% of CVS and Walgreens stores in the next five years.
The Pharmacy Guild will fail for the same reason that Big Labor is hemorrhaging members — unions are no longer compatible with the modern workforce. Pharmacists, who are compensated at a median annual wage of $134,790 , are not exactly the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers of yesteryear. Pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens compete vigorously to attract pharmacists by offering top-notch benefits packages. The Pharmacy Guild wants to confiscate union dues to deliver benefits that pharmacists already receive.
Americans may say they support organized labor in push polls, but when push comes to shove, workers reject unions more often than not. Big Labor has resorted to a number of increasingly desperate tactics just to stay afloat. Thanks to a compliant press, Big Labor is able to maintain the illusion that they are the all-powerful Oz instead of the doddering old man behind the curtain.
If unions were in the business of providing benefits that workers could not secure otherwise, union bosses would not have to scratch and claw for new members. But since union bosses are in the business of stealing workers’ money and spending it on progressive causes, Big Labor’s inevitable decline will continue no matter what the media says.
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Tom Hebert is the Director of Competition and Regulatory Policy at Americans for Tax Reform and executive director of the Open Competition Center.
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