Americans Are Starting to Love Unions Again
Labor union approval is now higher than at nearly any point in the last 50 years. The reasons: shit pay, teacher strikes, and Bernie Sanders.
Educators, parents, students, and supporters of the Los Angeles teachers strike gather in Grand Park on January 22, 2019 in downtown Los Angeles, California. (Scott Heins / Getty Images)
This Labor Day, we have cause to celebrate. Public support for unions has reached 64 percent in a recent Gallup poll.
Gallup has been asking the public about support for unions since 1936. Since 1967, the polling agency observes, the union approval rating “has only occasionally surpassed 60 percent. The current 64 percent reading is one of the highest union approval ratings Gallup has recorded over the past fifty years.”
To make sense of this trend, we need to take three factors into account: wage stagnation and benefits erosion, the teachers’ strike wave, and the rise of Bernie Sanders.
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