Labor Day 2022 I was feeling “The most promising moment for unions in several decades.” That year, youth workers were trying to organize new unions from the coast to the coast, and Labor unions enjoyed more than 70 percent popularity For the first time in 60 years.
But the Sangh density only fell. By 2024, unions represented for the first time in more than a century, Less than 6 percent private sector workers,
Unions are still popular, but the day of the unusually optimistic association of 2022-2023 now seems to be light years away.
In the first six months of 2025, the Trump administration has ripped a gap hole in the heart of the labor movement, which highlights its vulnerability to anti-union executive orders, corporate enmity and right-wing localism. Project after 2025 playbookPresident Trump has released Executive orders snatch the rights of collective bargain from over 800,000 federal workersThe largest single union-busting act in American history.
First, they have removed, without any reason, National Labor Relations Board and Democratic Member of Federal Labor Relations Authority is more Dozens of other comprehensive action Decades of decades-to reduce workers rights and security.
Every week brings a barrage of attacks on working people: unspecified workers, transgender activists, farm workers, home activists, scientific researchers, public media workers, teachers, creative activists and others. Corporations like Amazon and SpaceX, meanwhile, Continue your attack Not only the right to organize workers but also against the constitutionality of the 90 -year National Labor Relations Board.
It would be a mistake to assume that the US labor movement is united against Trump’s agenda. Several unions, including Teamstors, UAV, International Longshoraman Association and Building Trades, have welcomed Trump’s parts of economic nationalism, and many of his members have voted for Trump.
Unlike most traditional Republican, Vice President JD Vance, State Secretary Marco Rubio, and Missouri Sen do not want to destroy unions such as right -wing population, Josh Holey Teamstors, Steelworkers and Building Trades; Rather, they want to co-listen to them. Right -wing thinker influenced Oreen CassThey believe that members of these unions are often more conservative than the leadership of unions. To divide the American labor movement, the ability of right -wing localism should not be underestimated.
How can unions fight against these existent hazards? The labor movement has certainly depended on the support of the federal or state governments to survive. Trump’s comprehensive executive orders reveal a deep vulnerability by removing the rights of collective bargaining from federal activists and their other functions: unions like research universities (With whom Trump is also in war) Government finance and protection have also become dependent.
The US private sector union membership decreased by 6 percent for the first time in 2024 in more than 100 years. But a century ago, the labor movement had a more solid foundation than today – strong unions were based in trades and were used to survive during the period of government enmity. Trump administration is Not seen for decades, in a way the political power centered in the hands of the PresidentAnd unions are knowing that people who live mostly from politics can also die from politics.
I have long believed that American labor will have something bigger to change the atmosphere of labor relations, so that unions could get an opportunity to grow in a meaningful way, as if they had done the last time in the 1930s. And the current political and constitutional crisis is “something big.” We do not yet know how Trump’s attack on the Constitution is going to play, but firing of members of the National Labor Relations Board and other government agencies, and his attack on the rights of collective bargaining of federal workers, is of course correct with these illegal acts. Pure power plays, so to speak. If Trump is politically successful, the possibilities of labor are slow.
But his success is far away from certainty and if Trump’s power is grabbed, then more labor movement may be in sports which is true for many decades. A part of the problem has always been that labor law reform is very an issue – a black box, so to speak, which only understand internal formulas. But he can change.
American politics is still unpredictable, in a state of unusual flow. Unions and their colleagues can still come out of this crisis, which with a very strong shot in transformational labor law reform. But the labor movement should go on aggressive – playing by old rules will not be enough to save it.
The irony is that the challenge to the National Labor Relations Board’s constitutionality can open an opportunity for labor. The Supreme Court will almost certainly maintain last week’s decision from the 5th circuit in favor of SpaceX’s Constructional Challenge, but it does not threaten the actual law; This simply means that the National Labor Relations Board will be higher under the executive’s thumb, which in the case of Trump, would be clearly bad for labor.
But this will only take an amendment to bring an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act to bring in accordance with the decision of the court, and it will provide an opportunity to the Union advocates to reconsider the law. It is not clear that today’s labor installation can increase this challenge, but the future of unions may depend well on it.
John Logan is a professor at San Francisco State University and Director of Labor and Employment Studies.
