Americans Like Unions, But Our Laws Make It Hard To Form One

Unionizing is not against the law; but the law is against unionizing.

The past 18 months have been marked by loud labor organizing efforts — and opposition — at several massive corporate enterprises, including Starbucks and Amazon. Public approval of unions, meanwhile, is up to 71%, the highest level since 1965, according to a Gallup poll from August 2022. Yet according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the union membership rate of 10.1% last year was the lowest since records were kept, dating to 1983.

There’s certainly no single reason for those seemingly contradictory sets of statistics. But there is a main culprit: the country’s wildly outdated labor laws.

The current rules aren’t merely weak-kneed or incomplete; they’re tilted significantly in favor of employers. From restricting the right to organize to minimizing penalties for employers who break the laws, the legal deck is stacked against workers. And considering how long many of those rules have been on the books, they are well past due for an overhaul.