Poll Shows Most Americans Want To Be In Labor Unions

US unions' continued decline masks new forms of worker activism

But if labor markets are adapting to the reality of a mostly union-free America, so too is labor activism. Last year, two of the highest profile labor actions in the country – one-day "flash" strikes at fast food restaurants in New York City, and at Walmart stores nationwide – were coordinated by groups that are not traditional unions: New York Communities for Change and OUR Walmart (though both received union support). And both strikes were carried out without the traditional aim of formal union recognition.

Networks of new, grassroots workers centers – including the Restaurant Opportunities Centers, Retail Action Project, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, and National Domestic Workers Alliance – have grown in sectors which unions have found nearly impossible to organize due to their contingent or informal nature. And their victories – exposing safety and health violations, winning raises and backpay owed to workers, freeing some from virtual domestic slavery – have been achieved largely outside the purview of the body that governs union elections, the National Labor Relations Board.

Just a week before the BLS released its sobering report, Chicago passed a new law imposing some of the strictest sanctions on employers who do not pay workers the wages they are owed. It's an illegal but lightly enforced practice – and appallingly common in many industries, where it is used to force employees to work off-the-clock, as a means to avoid paying overtime rates, or simply as a way not pay staff for work they have done.