Benjamin Y. Fong from the Center for Work and Democracy at Arizona State University recaps for Jacobin all National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) Union Elections of 250 or more voters tallied in the previous month, in this case for January 2025. It’s the Center’s belief if the U.S. Labor Movement is to be rebuilt, it is going to be through experimentation with new strategies and tactics that push against the constraints of Labor Law and through large Unit organizing in the hundreds and thousands. Given the outsize importance of large Unit Labor Elections in the overall composition of the Labor Movement, there’s a good argument to be made that the trajectory of Organized Labor can be gleaned from an analysis of such elections. The vast majority of NLRB Representation Elections are for pretty small Units: Between 2020 and 2023, almost 90% of them were for Units of 100 Workers or less. All Workers should be in Unions - Unionized work is, on average, much better than Non-Unionized work, period. But from a macro perspective, such small elections aren’t going to do much to move the needle in terms of reversing the downward Union Density trend. For example, SEIU’s Committee of Interns and Residents won six NLRB elections in January 2025 involving 250 or more people. This string of victories has become somewhat commonplace for a rapidly growing Union.

To Read This Organizing Labor News Story In Its Entirety, Go To: Interns and Residents Are Unionizing at a Rapid Clip

Photo Courtesy Of The National AFL-CIO.