Minnesota unions grew by 23,000 members last year

February 3, 2025 by

Minnesota unions made membership gains in 2024, according to an annual report released last month by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationally, union density remained about the same.

The agency’s survey results estimate that Minnesota’s labor movement welcomed about 23,000 union members last year, increasing the total number of union members to 379,000. Minnesota’s union density increased from 13.3% of the total workforce to 14.2%.

The results reflect increased organizing activity in recent years among local health care, retail, cultural and hospitality workers, as well as public-sector employees.

Minnesota-based AFSCME Council 5 recently announced that the public-service union welcomed over 5,000 new members in 2024, and the Minnesota Nurses Association said it has added 1,400 new members in the last year.

Notable organizing victories last year included workers at First Avenue’s clubs in the Twin Cities joining UNITE HERE Local 17. Front-of-house workers at two prominent Minneapolis theater companies voted to join IATSE Local 13. Grocery workers at Mississippi Market stores in St. Paul joined United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189. And over 4,000 graduate workers in the University of Minnesota system ratified their first union contract in December.

Those gains kept Minnesota on the opposite path of its neighbor to the east.

In Wisconsin, where lawmakers have passed a right-to-work law and severely curtailed public-sector bargaining rights over the last 15 years, union density slipped by a full percentage point, to 6.4% last year.

Minnesota also outperformed the national trend.

The nation’s union membership rate was 9.9% in 2024, little changed from the prior year, and the number of workers who belong to unions fell slightly to 14.3 million.

The BLS report notes that the number of union members when it first began collecting comparable data, in 1983, was 17.7 million, and 20.1% of American workers were union members then.

But union members continued to earn more than their non-union peers in 2024. Non-union workers’ median weekly earnings were 85% of earnings reported by union workers last year, a weekly union advantage of nearly $200.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said the BLS statistics “don’t begin to tell the real story of the desire workers have to join a union,” pointing to a surge in petitions for union elections filed with the National Labor Relations Board since 2021.

Successful organizing campaigns at Starbucks, Whole Foods and Amazon – and at foreign-owned automakers like Volkswagen in the South – show Americans have an appetite for collective bargaining. But too often, Shuler said, union-busting employers exploit toothless labor laws to stifle their workers’ voice.

“There are 60 million workers who would join a union today if given the opportunity, but between broken labor law and corporate bosses like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos engaging in often illegal union-busting every year with little consequence, far too few get that chance. It’s time for change,” Shuler said, citing an AFL-CIO survey taken last year.

Unions have called on federal lawmakers to pass measures like the PRO Act that would make it easier for workers to form unions and stiffen the penalties employers face for breaking labor law.

“We call on the Trump administration to live up to its campaign promises to support workers by prioritizing fixing America’s broken labor law through the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act,” Shuler said. “These bills would finally update our archaic, broken laws and give workers what we so desperately want: a free and fair shot at joining a union on the job.”

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MN unions grew in 2021, bucking national trend

January 21, 2022 by

Minnesota bucked the national trend of declining union membership last year, as the state’s union rolls grew by 18,000 workers.

“Working people across Minnesota stood up in 2021 and demanded a voice on the job, better pay and benefits, and safer workplaces,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bill McCarthy said in response to the annual U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report on union membership, released yesterday.

Minnesota has seen a flurry of successful union drives over the last two years, bringing workers at hospitals and clinics, nonprofits, craft breweries and distilleries, bookstores and elsewhere into the labor movement.

The BLS data also underscores the union advantage, McCarthy said. A union contract raises wages by roughly 20% and overall compensation by about 28%, on average, making union jobs more attractive to workers at a time when many are reevaluating their career paths.

“Through a combination of workers organizing unions at their workplace and others flocking to union jobs, it’s clear that more Minnesotans understand that by speaking up together, they can truly earn a fair return on their work,” he said.

Union members made up 16% of Minnesota’s workforce in 2021, up from 15.8% in 2020. It was the second consecutive year in which Minnesota’s union density rose.

Nationally, union membership declined by 241,000 last year, to a total of about 14 million workers. Union density fell to 10.3% of the workforce.

The decline came despite a wave of collective action among workers, both union and non-union, for better wages and working conditions in 2021.

Public support for unions, too, is at its highest point in decades. A 2021 Gallup poll found 68% of Americans support organized labor, including 77% of young people. An MIT study found that 60 million Americans would join a labor union if they could.

Something doesn’t add up, union leaders said.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler pointed the finger at federal labor laws, written nearly a century ago, that do little to deter employers from illegally intimidating or retaliating against workers who try to form unions. In a statement reacting to the new data, Shuler said the laws “are designed to make joining a union as difficult as possible.”

“Across this country, workers are organizing for a voice on the job and millions of Americans are standing in solidarity with union members on strike,” Shuler added. “If everyone who wanted to join a union was able to do so, membership would skyrocket.”

“As we work to rebuild economy and seek justice for working people, the Biden administration and Congress must institute policies – such as the PRO Act, the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act and other legislation to expand Americans’ freedom to join together in unions,” said McCarthy, Minnesota’s highest-ranking union officer.

Meanwhile, the BLS report showed promising data for communities of color. Black workers continued to have the highest unionization rate in 2021, with 12.9% membership. According to a study by the Economic Policy Institute, Black union workers are paid 13.7% more than their non-union peers.

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Kera Peterson: A distant Labor Day this year, but our solidarity endures 

September 3, 2020 by

Kera Peterson is president of the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. Her “Labor Voices” column appeared in the September 2020 issue of The Saint Paul Union Advocate.

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Kera Peterson

For many of us, Labor Day weekend marks the final days of summer, one last chance to throw a backyard barbecue or head up to the cabin before the school year begins. For the St. Paul Regional Labor Federation, Labor Day has in recent years been an opportunity to bring hundreds of union members together for a parade through the State Fairgrounds. 

This year, of course, Labor Day looks a lot different. Get-togethers with loved ones are spaced six feet apart. And not only is our parade canceled, the whole State Fair has been called off. Despite the differences, Labor Day should always be about celebrating the contributions of America’s working people – especially the essential workers who have kept our country and our state going through the COVID-19 pandemic.  

The list of heroes working on the front lines during this public health crisis is long and filled with union members. Millions of America’s working people have stepped up, risking our lives and livelihoods, to continuously go to work since the onset of COVID-19. U.S. Postal Service employees are working in challenging, sometimes chaotic conditions to make sure our mail is safely delivered. Grocery store clerks are working overtime to ensure we have food to put on the table. Tradespeople are building and maintaining our infrastructure. Health care workers are adjusting to new protocols and care models to keep our communities well. Educators and public employees are working hard in conditions that continue to shift. Transit workers are getting essential workers to and from their jobs. 

COVID-19 has highlighted the vast social, economic and racial inequalities in this country, challenges we must face head on moving forward. But the pandemic is also shedding light on another crucial difference in economic and health security: the benefits of belonging in a union. According to the Economic Policy Institute, just 67% of nonunion private-sector workers had access to health care benefits in 2019, compared to 94% of union members. The union difference is real. Collective bargaining leads to benefits like paid leave, job security and wages high enough to sustain a family. 

On a more typical Labor Day, the Saint Paul RLF would bring together over 200 union members to march in the Minnesota State Fair’s parade. But not this year.

There’s never been a year where the union advantage – the power of having a voice on the job, a seat at the table – has been more clear. From National Nurses United winning victories in its fight for adequate personal protective equipment to the United Food and Commercial Workers demanding (and winning) stricter safety guidelines for grocery stores, solidarity has been fundamental in protecting America’s workers in this crisis. When working people come together, we make things better for everyone, especially in a crisis. 

But as we celebrate the working people who got us here and will keep us going, we also must take Labor Day to honor our brothers, sisters and friends who have fallen to COVID-19, especially those who became infected while on the job. No one should have to choose between risking their life or losing a paycheck. In our moments of great darkness, we must continue the fight for safe working conditions, hazard pay and paid sick leave.  

As union members, we must never take for granted the rights that empower us to bargain for safe workplaces, quality health insurance, family-sustaining wages and protections on the job. And in the face of this unprecedented pandemic, it’s important now more than ever to take this year’s holiday to uplift political candidates who share our values and fight to protect our rights.  

We’ve seen firsthand the devastation caused by political pundits who choose to put profits over people. That’s why this November, it’s crucial we get to the ballot box to elect labor-endorsed candidates for the Minnesota Legislature, for Congress and Joe Biden as the next president of the U.S.  

The labor movement has responded to COVID-19 with passion and dedication, fighting nonstop for workers’ protections. On Labor Day, we’ll pause to celebrate our essential workers and pay tribute to those we’ve lost, to cherish the rights won by union members before us and imagine what we can accomplish with an ally in the White House. And then we’ll get back to work. 

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