Union Filings Grew By 53 Percent This Fiscal Year, Marking Growing Union Wave

By Sharon Zhang, Truthout

New data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) shows that union filings rose dramatically over the past year, hitting a six-year high and increasing by more than 50 percent over the year before.

In Fiscal Year 2022, which lasted between October 2021 and September 2022, union petition filings with the NLRB rose by 53 percent over Fiscal Year 2021. In total, workers filed 2,510 union petitions in the most recent fiscal year — the highest number of filings since Fiscal Year 2016.

The data is a show of the strong growth of the labor movement in just the past year, which has seen both the success of groundbreaking union campaigns from Starbucks and Amazon workers and also the spread of such campaigns to workers for other household name companies like Trader Joe’s, Apple and, most recently, Home Depot. Labor advocates say that workers have been more empowered amidst growing wealth inequality and runaway capitalism that has led to eroding pay and working conditions.

The NLRB reported that unfair labor practice filings, or accusations of illegal labor conduct, were also up in the most recent fiscal year. Such charges increased by 19 percent in Fiscal Year 2022, with nearly 18,000 charges filed.