The number of workers involved in major work stoppages increased by 280% in 2023 and union membership rose last year to 16.2 million workers — an increase of 191,000.
That’s from a report by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, left-leaning think tank. Despite the increase, the percentage of workers represented by a union decreased from 11.3% to 11.2%, as unionization in the private sector rose in 2023, but public-sector unionization continued to decline.
Jennifer Sherer, director of the institute’s State Worker Power Initiative, helped write the report and tells the Advance that the UAW is out in front of that renewed interest in worker empowerment through collective bargaining.
“I think they’re seizing the moment in a really effective and powerful way and recognizing that this is a time when workers are looking to correct for literally decades of wage suppression, stagnant wages, and in the auto industry in particular, an active move on the part of major auto companies who are at this moment receiving millions to billions in federal and state subsidies to expand their operations and create new jobs, but without a clear commitment to the wages, benefits, and conditions that are going to go along with those jobs,” she said.