The Union Members Who Never Voted for Their Union

J ust 6 percent of American private-sector employees belonged to a labor union in 2023, yet countless words have been written over the past decade about how politicians can win their votes. But before thinking about winning union-member votes, lawmakers should consider stunning new data on unions winning union-members’ votes — specifically, how rare it is these days. According to a new study that I coauthored with F. Vincent Vernuccio of the Institute for the American Worker, more than 95 percent of private-sector employees represented by a union today never actually voted for that union to represent them. 

Today’s unions are undemocratic and unrepresentative of today’s workers. Fortunately, the policy solutions to remedy this are both simple and popular. These reforms should be a priority as lawmakers consider how best to empower — and win support from — America’s working class.

There are three primary reasons so few union workers have voted for their union “representative.” First and foremost, once a union is voted in, it is not required by law to stand for reelection — even if none of the current workforce voted for it. For example, the United Auto Workers (UAW) unionized General Motors in Michigan in the 1930s. Needless to say, it is highly unlikely that anyone who voted for the UAW still works at the plant, yet employees nearly 90 years later are required to accept UAW representation as a condition of employment. 

To mitigate this injustice, lawmakers should require union-recertification elections. There are several ways to do so, some with precedent already in law. In 2019, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a union must stand for reelection if, within a specific time frame, the employer presents evidence of the union lacking majority support, but the union wishes to remain in place. Wisconsin requires all public-sector unions to stand for reelection every year. Since Wisconsin’s law went into effect, hundreds of unions have either lost reelection votes or opted against trying to recertify altogether. 

Other national changes are possible. Federal labor law could be amended to require unions to report in their annual federal filings what portion of the bargaining unit chooses to be dues-paying members — an indication of worker support. Should that figure drop below a certain threshold, the law could trigger a recertification election. Last year, Florida enacted a similar measure for its public-sector unions, requiring a reelection should dues-paying membership in a union drop below 60 percent. 

A recertification-election requirement is arguably the single most important change lawmakers could enact to make organized labor more democratic, and one poll showed that the concept is enormously popular with union households nationally (71 percent support) and in the electorally critical states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (68 percent support). 

Another reason so few of today’s union members have voted for their union is that unions can be certified through a process known as “card check,” in which organizers publicly pressure workers into signing an authorization card for the union, rather than workers voting by secret-ballot election. 

At a 2019 congressional hearing, former AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka testified that unions need workers’ personal information (such as home address and cellphone number) so that organizers could confront them “at a grocery store, any place else where you can get them” during the organizing process, which would include soliciting an employee’s signature in a card-check campaign. He continued, “the best place for them to be able to talk is at their home” so they could have “a real conversation.” Congress has heard countless testimonies under oath of workers being harassed by union organizers during the card-check process. Yet in 2023, the Biden administration’s National Labor Relations Board streamlined the ability for unions to organize a workplace via card check.  

The fix is simple: Reform federal labor law to require a secret-ballot election for unionization, as the Employee Rights Act would do. A 2022 survey showed that 70 percent of Americans — and 76 percent of union households — support this concept.

At present, unions can succeed without support from a majority of its workforce when only a tiny portion of eligible employees vote in the election. For example, the NLRB is considering certifying an election in California in which just three employees out of 24 voted to unionize. A fourth voted against the union, and the rest did not vote. Federal labor law should require a quorum — such as two-thirds of all eligible voters — in order for an election result to be upheld. Such a requirement is popular: Eighty-four percent of Americans support this idea.

Requiring union-recertification elections, secret-ballot votes, and a quorum would make the organizing process considerably more democratic. In addition to these changes, lawmakers should free workers currently covered by unions they do not want. 

There are many reasons why an employee may wish to disassociate from their union but keep their job. For example, some unions — with the help of the NLRB — condone racial and sexual harassment in the workplace so long as it comes in the course of union organizing, even though such behavior runs afoul of federal civil-rights law. Unions also spend enormous sums of worker dues — dollars intended for organizing and representational activity — to support political and ideological causes. Since 2010, they’ve spent nearly $2 billion doing so.

Right-to-work, currently the law in a slim majority of the states, allows workers to decide for themselves whether to join and pay a union. The Worker’s Choice Act would also allow these workers to opt out of union representation and represent themselves — in the process, ending unions’ principal objection to right-to-work; unions allege that workers who opt out are so-called “free riders” on the union contract, when in fact they are forced riders because they have no choice but to accept union representation. The Worker’s Choice Act would end that by allowing unions to represent only dues-paying members. 

Public approval of unions has increased in recent years, even as the membership rate continues to fall. Indeed, one poll showed that even as their popularity increased, just 11 percent of Americans were “extremely interested” in joining a union. Perhaps many workers are aware of the undemocratic and unaccountable nature of today’s unions, which might be why unions are hardly even trying to gain new members through organizing activity; according to federal data, unions attempt to organize less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all eligible employees each year. Instead, they spend millions lobbying to rig the rules in their favor.

Policy-makers — particularly Republicans trying to win over working-class voters — must see unions as they actually are, not as they wish them to be. Today’s unions are not allies in freedom. Republicans don’t need to endorse larger, more powerful — and inevitably more coercive — unions in order to win workers’ votes. They should move toward more freedom and more democratic labor laws that empower workers. That is how they’ll improve the lives of workers, advance the cause of freedom, and benefit their own political outlook.