Posted on January 17th, 2023.

The share of US workers belonging to a trade union fell to the lowest number on record in 2022, despite a series of high-profile union election victories.

US unions added 273,000 new members in 2022, the labor department reported Thursday, but that increase was outpaced by non-union job growth. Unionized members made up 10.1 percent of the US workforce in 2022, down from 10.3 percent in 2021. Some 14.3mn US wage and salary workers are union members.

Union membership among US workers has been declining for decades. Some union leaders hoped that might be changing as high profile victories at Amazon, Starbucks, and Trader Joe’s reenergised the movement. The National Labour Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees collective bargaining in the US, reported a 53 per cent increase in the number of union elections petitions it received between October 2021 and September 2022. It was the largest increase since 2016.

The vast majority of new union members identify as people of colour, per the labour department, with black workers having the highest unionisation rates. The state government, durable goods and manufacturing, arts, and transportation industries added the most unionised workers.

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