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Unionizing efforts could ‘push the envelope’ this year after steady organizing in 2022

While employers are regaining some leverage in a softening job market, labor leaders are encouraged by 2022 activity and expect to see unions grow and make bigger demands in 2023.

(Left to Right Front Row) Camila Rondon, red hat, Swagato Chakravorty, Laurel Garber, and Holly Chen, Monique D’Almeida, celebrate as it is announced that the strike is over at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in Philadelphia, Friday, October 14, 2022.
(Left to Right Front Row) Camila Rondon, red hat, Swagato Chakravorty, Laurel Garber, and Holly Chen, Monique D’Almeida, celebrate as it is announced that the strike is over at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in Philadelphia, Friday, October 14, 2022.Read moreJessica Griffin / Staff Photographer

Coming off a year of noteworthy unionizing efforts in the Philadelphia region, labor leaders and organizers say interest in union membership is high, employees are more empowered than ever, and 2023 could be a big year for more organizing and collective bargaining, even as the job market softens.

Within Pennsylvania, 715,000 workers were union members last year, an increase of 22,000 from the year before, and union membership was higher than the national average, according to recently released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“What we saw by and large was one of the best demonstrations of worker power both nationally and in Southeastern Pennsylvania and Philadelphia in a very long time” in 2022, said Danny Bauder, the new president of the Philadelphia AFL-CIO, which has more than 100 local unions as members. “It’s exciting to see workers from so many different places getting together to fight for a contract … or starting a union in the first place.”

Across the United States, union interest is high, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank, using data from the BLS and the National Labor Relations Board. It cited a 53% increase in union election petitions from October 2021 to September 2022.

The organizing momentum is apparent in Philadelphia, where unions made headlines throughout 2022.

Some of the biggest news was in food service. Several Starbucks locations in the city voted to unionize and joined a national strike. Throughout the food industry, coffee shops and restaurants started to see a union movement build, as the newly formed Local 80, affiliated with Workers United, gained members from several independent businesses.

“The unionizing just took off,” said Eli Zastempowski, an organizer for Local 80. “Bosses are scared. Unionizing like this hasn’t happened in decades.”

  1. Stagehands at Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia voted to unionize with International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 8 in August, so they could collectively bargain with employer LiveNation. At other LiveNation venues in the city, stagehands are already affiliated with Local 8.

  2. In November, Temple University health-care workers won a new contract, making their nurses the highest paid in Pennsylvania. Other health-care unions are expected to use this contract as a model in upcoming negotiations.

  3. After years of negotiations and a 19-day strike in the fall, 180 workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art won a contract in October.

  4. Late in the year, workers at Eastern State Penitentiary filed for a union election, seeking to become part of the United Steelworkers.

  5. The Philadelphia Symphonic Choir in December voted to become part of the American Guild of Musical Artists. It asked the Philadelphia Orchestra Association to voluntarily recognize the union by a Dec. 12 deadline, but that date passed without recognition.

Not all organizing efforts bore fruit

An attempt to unionize the Home Depot in Northeast Philadelphia went to a vote in November but failed to get enough support.

Across the U.S., the total number of union members increased by nearly 2% from 2021 to 2022. But the total workforce grew so much that the union membership rate decreased slightly, to 10.1%. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that 60 million workers wanted to unionize but couldn’t.

In Pennsylvania, the union membership rate also decreased slightly, from 12.9% in 2021 to 12.7% in 2022, as the total workforce grew. Pennsylvania’s union representation rate — which includes nonunion members who are included in a union contract — was 13.6% in 2022, matching the rate for 2021, BLS data show.

‘Anger changes things’

Some of the power wielded by workers in the last few years has been attributable to a labor market in which job openings are more numerous than available workers to fill them.

“As the hot labor market of the recent period recedes, so, too, will the increase in worker power that came from workers’ increased ability to quit and take another job,” the Economic Policy Institute predicted in its analysis. Already, the institute noted, job openings are down 12% from March 2022.

But Zastempowski, of Local 80, doesn’t expect a slowdown in union momentum, adding that economists who are forecasting one are off the mark and are missing “the human factor.”

“As a union organizer, you realize everything is driven by emotion,” Zastempowski said. “People don’t risk their lives for $1 an hour. … They risk their lives for dignity, and being treated like human beings.”

The recent wave of organizing, the labor organizer said, stems not from economic conditions, but from a realization during the pandemic that workers’ needs weren’t being met and wouldn’t be honored unless workers institutionalized their power.

Put more simply, Zastempowski said, “anger changes things.”

Bauder said the pandemic exposed “the worst of our economic reality” and the worst of corporate culture, and people haven’t forgotten yet. “Workers are a lot more empowered and clued in,” he said.

He expects NLRB elections — in which workers who want to create a union make it official with the U.S. government — to be announced as frequently this year as in 2022, if not more often, and he expects established unions to “push the envelope” in contract negotiations. Asked about a recession, he said that “the word recession is scarier than the actual condition,” and he doesn’t expect economic conditions to slow down worker efforts.

Another factor that may help, Bauder said, is the presence of labor-friendly leaders in the U.S. Department of Labor ― Secretary Marty Walsh is a former union leader ― and the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, where newly appointed Secretary Nancy Walker was head of the Fair Labor Section at the state Office of the Attorney General.

“Elections have consequences,” Bauder said. “Things are happening we’ve never been able to get before.”