Workers are voting to join unions at the highest rate in 15 years, finds an analysis out this morning from the progressive Center for American Progress.
It's a reflection of increased grassroots momentum behind organizing — helped along by a strongly pro-worker National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), under Biden appointee Jennifer Abruzzo.
Workers voted in favor of a union 74% of the time this year (through April) — a jump from 2019 when it was 69%.
In 2023, there were 1,777 union elections — the highest number since 2010, when there were 1,942.
Under President Joe Biden, the NLRB has streamlined the rules around union elections — cutting the time between petition and voting. The agency also withdrew a Trump-era proposal that would have excluded private college and university student workers from unionizing — driving a wave of graduate student organizing. These elections tend to have very high win rates, a recent study from the Economic Policy Institute finds.