Report shows union participation in Illinois declining despite growth in new petitions

Overall union participation has declined in Illinois in recent years, though the state has seen an increase in successful unionization efforts for the second year in a row.

That’s according to the State of the Unions 2024 report, the latest installment in an annual review of unionization in Illinois and the U.S. by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the University of Illinois’ Project for Middle Class Renewal. ILEPI is a nonprofit research organization with a board of directors that is closely aligned with unions.

The study found that Illinois saw 86 successful union petitions in 2023, up from 67 the year before. Those are the two highest totals in a 10-year period dating back to 2014. The previous eight years ranged from 25 to 62 successful petitions.

“When you see a few positive years where you see growth in numbers, that suggests there’s a change in the labor market, a change in the attitudes of workers, a change in the strategy of union organizers,” Robert Bruno, co-author of the report and executive director of the Project for Middle Class Renewal, said in an interview. “It all suggests a positive turn.”

Thanks to the successful petitions, 4,399 additional workers joined a union in 2023, down from 9,497 in 2022.

“It ranges from coffee shops to hospitals to cannabis producers to top universities,” said Frank Manzo, a co-author of the report and an economist at ILEPI. “You know, private and nonprofit organizations have successfully organized dozens of workplaces, which shows that the labor movement is gaining traction in new and emerging industries.”

Despite the increase in unionization efforts in the private sector, the percentage of Illinois’ workforce that belongs to a union fell below 13 percent for the first time in the 10-year period studied. At 12.8 percent, Illinois had the 13th highest unionization rate of any state. In total, there were 707,829 union members in Illinois in 2023, down from nearly 847,000 in 2015.

The percentage of public sector unions has fallen by a total of 4.1 percentage points since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. AFSCME, from 52.1% to 48%. That ruling ended the practice of public sector unions not charging fees to individuals who benefited from union representation but chose not to join.

Those fees, often referred to as “fair share” fees, help unions better negotiate wage and benefit structures for all workers, regardless of whether they are union members. Without them, Manzo said, unions are required to represent those individuals without compensation.

“It is true that the largest contributor to the decline in union membership in Illinois is the decline in the bargaining power of public sector workers, which was caused by a 2018 Supreme Court ruling,” Manzo said.

Another factor contributing to the decline in union participation is that the economy has created jobs in “low union density” sectors, such as management, professional services, e-commerce and the gig economy, he said. At the same time, careers with long-standing union ties, such as mining and manufacturing, have either grown more slowly or “been lost altogether,” he said.

But he added that other states, including many surrounding Illinois, have passed “right-to-work” laws that create “Janus-like conditions” in the private sector.

Illinois’ Workers’ Rights Amendment, an amendment to the state constitution approved by voters in 2022, “effectively prohibits these so-called ‘right-to-work’ laws from ever being enacted in the state,” Manzo said.

“And the data show that states that protect workers’ rights, like Illinois, have higher wages, faster wage growth and stronger unions compared to states that have weakened collective bargaining rights,” he said.

While Illinois’ unionization rate was 12.8% in 2023, nearby states with right-to-work laws — Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin — had rates ranging from 7.1% to 8.8%.

The median hourly wage in Illinois in 2023 was $36.82, compared with $28.82 to $31.84 in the four neighboring right-to-work states. However, the cost of living in Illinois is generally higher than in those states, which do not have a city comparable to Chicago’s size.

Wage growth in Illinois was 4.6% higher than in those four states on average from 2017 to 2023, based on the study’s review of U.S. Department of Labor’s Current Population Survey data. Unionized Illinois workers earn about 12.6% more than nonunion workers, according to the same analysis.

The study found that black workers, men, war veterans and workers with master’s degrees have the highest union membership rates in Illinois.

Nationally, the U.S. added 135,000 new union members in 2023, after gaining 277,000 union members in 2022, the report said. Unions are also seeing near-record levels of support, with 67% of respondents viewing them favorably, according to a Gallup poll cited in the report.

“Despite facing an economy in transition and significant legal challenges, unions are organizing new industries and improving the quality of jobs,” Manzo said.