Gains in private sector union membership show a labor revival is possible

On this Labor Day, unions in Illinois are organizing new industries and boosting job quality despite dealing with an economy in transition and persistent legal and political challenges.

A new study just released by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows that Illinois saw its most successful year of union organizing petitions in the last decade, while the United States added union members for the second consecutive year in 2023.

Today, 13% of workers are dues-paying union members in Illinois, which is significantly higher than the national average. Data reveal that unions boost worker earnings by 13% in our state. The biggest impacts are on Black workers, military veterans, teachers, police officers, firefighters, and construction tradespeople, who are the most-unionized workers in Illinois.

However, while the labor movement is stronger here than in the rest of the country, Illinois’ overall unionization rate gradually has declined over time. That’s partly because the economy has added jobs in sectors with low-union densities, like business services and e-commerce, while jobs with long-standing ties to organized labor have either grown more slowly or been lost.

The most significant contributor to declines in the national unionization rate has been declines in worker bargaining power in the public sector, sparked by a 2018 Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME. That decision undermined public sector unions by requiring them to provide services and representation to nonmembers for free. Since this weakening of collective bargaining, Illinois’ state and local government employees have experienced a 4% drop in union membership rates.

It is a different story in the private sector. Indeed, both the Chicago area and Illinois as a whole added union members in the private sector last year. From coffee shops to hospitals to top-ranked universities, private and nonprofit workers successfully organized dozens of workplaces — showing that the labor movement is gaining traction in new industries.

Gains in private sector unionization rates came fresh off the passage of the Workers’ Rights Amendment to the Illinois Constitution. This Amendment protected collective bargaining rights for all workers and banned so-called “right-to-work” laws that could bring Janus­-like conditions to Illinois’ private workplaces. As a result, Illinois’ unionization rate remained 5% higher than neighboring states with so-called “right-to-work” laws. And our workers now earn 19% more per hour than their counterparts in these border states.

Despite unions enjoying overwhelming bipartisan approval today, there are groups seeking to barge ahead with the unpopular, decadeslong attack on worker bargaining power.

“Project 2025,” written by at least 140 people who worked in the Trump Administration, advocates for banning all public sector unions (page 82), allowing states to opt out of National Labor Relations Act protections covering private sector workers and their right to join unions (page 605), letting companies eliminate unions in the middle of a contract (page 603), and repealing policies that increase the chances that skilled union tradespeople are employed on public infrastructure projects (page 604). It is perhaps no surprise that American voters oppose this agenda by wide margins.

Lawmakers could pursue a different path. The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act would ensure that more workers have collective bargaining rights by making it easier for workers who want to join unions to do so, establishing common-sense protections against employer interference in organizing drives, and outlawing laws that undermine unions and depress wages.

Ultimately, the impact of labor unions is well-documented. Real-world data shows that unions raise wages, expand health insurance coverage, produce safer workplaces, reduce employee turnover, and decrease reliance less on government assistance programs.

As we invest in emerging industries and workers have become more attuned to all the ways in which unions improve job quality, it is clear that a new labor resurgence is possible — especially when workers’ rights to organize are protected.

• Frank Manzo is an economist at the nonpartisan Illinois Economic Policy Institute.