As US Workers Fight for Labor Rights, Public Support for Unions Soars to Five-Decade High

Amid a continued high-profile push for workers’ rights at U.S. companies including Starbucks and Amazon, polling released Tuesday showed that Americans’ approval of labor unions is the highest it’s been in nearly six decades and has risen substantially since a low point in the 2010s.

Gallup’s annual Work and Education Survey, conducted between August 1-23, found that 71% of Americans now approve of labor unions.

Support for workers’ rights has steadily risen in recent years as the public has watched a fired Amazon employee lead his former colleagues to a historic union victory in April and Starbucks baristas at more than 200 stores vote to unionize despite facing aggressive—and illegal—retaliation by the coffee chain.

In 2021, 68% of people said they supported labor unions, and 64% reported the same before the coronavirus pandemic marked a shift in many American workplaces.

The Gallup poll, released less than a week before Labor Day, found that support for unions is now the highest it’s been since 1965 and has jumped by 23 points in just 13 years, following the Great Recession.

The survey follows polling that showed Alabama residents overwhelmingly backed an effort to unionize by Amazon warehouse employees in the city of Bessemer and a survey taken in February showing that seven in 10 Starbucks customers supported the unionization push at the company.

As the push to unionize has spread across some of the country’s largest companies, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reported in July a 56% increase in union petitions filed in the first six months of 2022.

Restaurant workers in Austin, Texas have formed an independent union with the goal of organizing the nation’s entire food services industry and since Starbucks employees in Buffalo, New York became the first U.S. workers at the chain to unionize, employees at more than 300 stores in 36 states have filed for union elections with the NLRB.

The Gallup poll, said Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), shows that “the overwhelming majority of Americans understands what unions bring to the table: higher wages, safer working conditions, lifesaving benefits, job security, and dignity and respect.”

Originally published at Commondreams.org.