November 25, 2024 — Unions in the U.S. have seen an explosion of support over the past few years, from Amazon to Starbucks to Hollywood. New York State boasts the most unionized workforce in the country, with just under 21 percent of workers belonging to a union, according to the annual State of the Unions report from the CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.
Public sector and government employees, however, have historically had a hard time establishing themselves, in part because government employees were appointed by political parties until the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883.
Following the 1883 legislation, Postal Office workers formed the National Associate of Letter Carriers in 1889. A few years after its formation, the union was able to win $3.5 million in back overtime pay for its members. Other postal unions would rise throughout the years and eventually the National Association of Letter Carriers would join the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in 1917.
It would still be a few decades before unionization seemed a little less uncommon. While President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a supporter of collective bargaining in the private sector, he generally opposed bargaining in the public sector. Although the 1935 Wagner Act protected the right of employees in the private sector to join unions, engage in bargaining and take collective action, no such protections existed for public sector employees.
For many years, public sector unionization was seen as a state’s rights issue — and in many parts of America, that is still somewhat the case.
In New York, Mayor Robert Wagner, Jr. issued the “little Wagner Act” in 1958, which established small protections for public sector unions in New York City and gave city employees union representation regardless of if they were members of the union or not. Although it seemed New York was leading in broadening rights for its public employees, Wisconsin would be the first state, in 1959, to permit collective bargaining for the public sector across the state. New York followed suit in 1967 after passing the Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act, also known as the Taylor Law.
Today, 15 states either have no law or have repealed or outlawed attempts to collectively bargain. Attempts to introduce legislation to break up unions or take action against collective bargaining are ongoing. Despite these attacks, the number of public sector employees joining unions in states where they are permitted has only increased since the 1960s.
In 2018, unions—including those in the public sector—saw some impact to membership after the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, which ruled that public employees have no obligation to join a union. Still, more than five years later, public sector unions have managed to blunt the impact of that decision.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, union membership in the public sector was more than five times higher than the rate of private sector union membership in 2023.
In 2024 alone, PEF has welcomed 6,500 new members to the union. Since the Janus decision, PEF’s membership has grown 3% and as of November 2024 the union has nearly 54,000 dues payers.