New data released today According to what the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Trade union representation It grew by 463,000 in 2025, bringing the total number of workers represented by union contracts to 16.5 million. Thanks to years of sustained organizing, 11.2% of all wage and salary workers in the United States are now covered by union contracts, up from 2024 and a 16-year high.
“Billionaire leaders and anti-union politicians have tried to throw the kitchen sink at workers and their unions — cutting our jobs and manipulating the rules to scare us away from organizing — but they have failed.” said AFL-CIO President Liz Schuler. “Workers are under relentless attacks on our freedoms and livelihoods. These numbers confirm what we have seen in the labor movement: workers have sensed President Trump’s billionaire agenda at work and are hungry to take back their power. Workers know that the best check on a bad president is a strong union contract. In 2026, workers will continue to organize in every corner of the country and build power to fight for the lives they deserve.”
“The Labor Party is one of the last institutions in this country that workers actually trust,” Schuler added. “Nearly 70% of Americans support unions, and more than 50 million more workers are eager to join a union — but broken labor law continues to confront them. Many of them face ferocious union busting and retaliation for organizing and punishing layoffs even when company bosses turn a profit. And when Trump suspended the National Labor Relations Board by denying it a quorum, workers were forced to wait — beyond the delaying tactics used by their bosses — for their elections to be conducted with approved justice. and the legality that must be achieved.”
New report He appears Undeniable energy across the country:
- Years of organizing in new industries, workplaces, and in “right-to-work” states in the South pushed national union density to 10 percent.
- Nearly half of union growth came from Southern states, with younger workers organizing at a rapid pace.
- The number of public sector workers represented by unions increased by 236,000 people, or 36.4% of that workforce.
- Despite the largest union busting in history, union density among federal workers increased to more than 31% — the largest single-year increase since 2011 — as workers responded to DOGE-led attacks aimed at stripping collective bargaining rights and firing experts from their jobs.
- Private sector union representation increased, adding 227,000 workers, with significant gains in health care, retail trade, education services and construction.
- Workers are looking to the labor movement for solutions as artificial intelligence threatens their jobs and basic rights. Indeed, the White House is moving forward with its first project for the billionaire.Artificial intelligence business plan“Empowering CEOs to Using artificial intelligence as an excuse To cut salaries, with 7% of planned job cuts attributable to new technology.
“Politicians face a clear mandate to stand up to union-busting leaders, whether they’re in the corner office or the Oval Office,” Schuler said. “We call on Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Public Service Freedom to Bargain Act, and to reverse the single largest union-busting law in American history by passing the Protecting America’s Workforce Act in the Senate.”
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