The Conversation: Marick Masters on ongoing shifts in labor issues
Marick Masters, professor of business and adjunct professor of political science at Wayne State University, wrote an article for The Conversation about ongoing shifts in labor issues. He writes: Workers organized and took to the picket line in increased numbers in 2022 to demand better pay and working conditions, leading to optimism among labor leaders and advocates that they're witnessing a turnaround in labor's sagging fortunes. Teachers, journalists, and baristas were among the tens of thousands of workers who went on strike - and it took an act of Congress to prevent 115,000 railroad employees from walking out as well. In total, there have been at least 20 major work stoppages involving at least 1,000 workers each in 2022, up from 16 in 2021, and hundreds more that were smaller. At the same time, workers at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple and dozens of other companies filed over 2,000 petitions to form unions during the year - the most since 2015. Workers won 76% of the 1,363 elections that were held. Historically, however, these figures are pretty tepid. The number of major work stoppages has been plunging for decades, from nearly 200 as recently as 1980, while union elections typically exceeded 5,000 a year before the 1980s. As of 2021, union membership was at about the lowest level on record, at 10.3%. In the 1950s, over 1 in 3 workers belonged to a union. As a labor scholar, I agree that the evidence shows a surge in union activism. The obvious question is: Do these developments manifest a tipping point?