Debate Desk
Did Unions Build the Middle Class, and Should Washington Favor Them?
Unions won real gains in particular industries, but a federal thumb on the scale ignores workers' choice and the cost to the jobs they bargain over.
The claim
Union supporters argue that collective bargaining raised wages, brought the weekend and workplace safety, and lifted generations into the middle class, and that falling membership tracks rising inequality. Washington, they say, should make organizing easier by speeding elections and penalizing employers who resist.
The answer in three points
- Workers have a right to organize and bargain, and conservatives defend it. A free association is a free association. The question is whether the government should tilt the process.
- Union gains in a few industries were won in part when those industries had little competition. Once foreign and domestic rivals arrived, unions in some sectors negotiated pay that the companies could not sustain.
- Rules that shorten the time between a petition and a vote, or that remove the secret ballot, reduce the worker's ability to decide in private. A free choice needs time to hear both sides and a vote nobody can see.
The fair position is therefore neither hostile nor servile. Private-sector workers who choose to organize should be able to, through a fair election and a secret ballot. Employers who break the law should be punished. And public policy should not decide in advance that a union is the right answer for every workplace. A worker's first loyalty is to his own family, and the law should keep his choice free.
Notice, too, that the largest gains in living standards came from an economy that grew, from cheaper goods and from rising productivity, and that this growth reached workers whether or not they were organized.
The numbers
- The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that union members were about 10 percent of U.S. wage and salary workers in 2024, and about 6 percent of private-sector workers.
- The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gave private-sector workers the right to organize and bargain, according to the text of the statute.
- Public-sector workers are a much larger share of union members than in the 1950s, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics historical data.
What they will say next
"Union decline caused the wage stagnation." Productivity, trade, technology and the structure of the economy changed together, and many countries with weak unions did better than America in some periods. It is too simple to pick one cause.
"Right-to-work laws drive down pay." Right-to-work laws protect workers from being forced to pay a union as a condition of keeping a job. A union that serves its members can win them voluntarily.
"Employers fight organizing." Some do, and the law already penalizes illegal firings and threats. Enforcing it against all parties, including unions that coerce, is the answer, not a change that removes the secret ballot.
"Government unions deserve the same rights." They do not stand in the same place. A private union bargains against an owner whose own money is at stake, while a public union bargains with officials who answer to voters but are often elected with union help. Even Franklin Roosevelt doubted that collective bargaining could work the same way with the government.