In comparison to other times, support for unions is on the rise for sure. But what is union curious? I'm Bert Cohen, and with your help, we are keeping democracy alive. He's not breathing. Fairly. A new exhaustive national study and report issued by the economic policy Institute notes that, quote, there is a large population of workers with a limited understanding of what successful unions require and what they can deliver. The title of the report is the rise of union curious support for union immunization among America's frontline workers. Unions are not in the 20 24 Republican platform. That is for sure. There's the old statement in union. There is strength. Exactly what they don't want. In much of the early in mid twentieth century, the union movement was strong. But with the rise of reagan and the steady shift to the right, unions were seen as detrimental to freedom. Well, for corporations and the ultra wealthy, For the right, it is essential to keep workers as powerless as possible, reliably driving up profits organized movements such as unions and the civil rights and women's movements have been vital components of assuring victories for progressive Democrats Without real on the ground movements as his historian Michael Ka points out in his recent book what it took to win, Democrats are less likely to win. But maybe it is happening. So what is this rise and what our guest today calls a rise in the union curious It's true that in very recent years. We have seen strikes by teachers and auto workers and many others emerge into the national consciousness with Vic victory after victory. Today, we'll look at this new phenomenon, what it means and as the report asks The pressing question facing the labor movement and labor scholars is this, how can the curious be turned into actual union members? Our guest today, John S A is 1 of 3 authors of the Economic Policy Institute report along with Jake G and Thomas Ko. I'll hope Pronounce that right. John A is professor of political economy at the Uc San Diego school of global policy and strategy. Current research projects include decent jobs in the modern economy, the puzzle of employer sponsored workers, mutual aid funds and union membership at the county and commuting zone levels. His book in the interest of others along with Margaret Levy, studies how some labor unions are able to provoke actions that transcend members private interests, building and expanded community of fate in his words, and the power of community can hardly be overstated. John A, Thanks so much for being with us on keeping democracy see live. Great. Thank you so much for having me. Well, the report concludes that 2 major shifts are occurring in Us workers attitudes toward labor unions, the rise of workers who are interested in, but unsure about unions and an emerging generation gap between young and older workers. That phenomenon will be discussed as we proceed. But first I wanted to ask, please tell us about the Economic Policy Institute, what it is, and the genesis of this report, how it came about? Thanks. I'm actually the wrong person to tell you about the economic policy Institute. They are as far as I understand I think tank in the political spectrum, they being left of center but with a long commitment of producing research policy documents and recommendations around issues of labor work, and so forth. I know they have a deep connections with the American labor movement as well. By myself, as you said, in an academic with kind of an institutional affiliation and a job, separate from... U. Api. Mh. But, so how did this report come about? Great question. So Jake, My c Authors is Jake Gru and Thomas Coach and I. We're in the process. We ran a survey the last couple of years, focusing on frontline workers in the United States. On a variety of topics, including things like surveillance on the job, your satisfaction in connection with your coworkers, as well as your feelings of say, alien nation or even exploitation with your employer. And your interested in doing something about it, including things like joining or voting for union organization in your workplace. And so we've been investigating this data over a couple several months at this point and 1 of the things that really jumped out, they came out in an early report was the massive generational shifts that you alluded to that there is you know, the way we d it was workers 30 and under versus over 30, but 30 is pretty harbor arbitrary, you could pick any kind of division in there. Younger workers are when you ask them much more interested in taking action on the job and in joining in being part of a union or other types of things that that are, involved voice and work and older workers. You don't have a... You know, we can speculate about why that is but it's certainly evident in data And then not just the data we collected, but in a variety of other surveys and forms of data that we've seen. So we c that. We connected it with this question, kind of standard question on surveys about would you vote for Union is in your workplace. And then what we did is we went to past surveys did that asked that same question over many decades. All the way back to the late 19 70. Mh. And we were able to then say, look, what did this... You know, these aren't the same people. Obviously, the different sets of people in different times when you ask people in this question and then seventies, how did they respond when he had them in the nineties in the 2 thousands and then now 20 22 20 23. And what we found was starting, you know, right around 20 18, you start seeing the proportion of people all workers, not just young worker who were opposed to unions who say they would not vote for a unity in the works site, really starts to to shrink pretty dramatically. So a lot of fewer workers are are are are not opposed to unions. But you weren't necessarily seeing huge increases in workers who are very supportive of unions either. They were they were growing, but kind of not not that rapidly. What you saw is a very rapid and sustained expansion in the workers who just said they didn't know. They didn't know how they would vote about a union. And this was something that no 1 had really commented on it and we wanted to bring it to light. We think it's an important underappreciated point. And so we wrote the report. We brought it to Pi and they agreed with us and they work with us to put it into a position to bring it to the public bring it to policymakers. Bring into units and union organizers to make sure this information understood. It is so interesting this generation gap. III wonder about younger workers knowledge of union history. And I I would have thought quite frankly, up until recently that younger workers, you know, 35 and under, would be skeptical of of of union immunization. That was something that the father's generation did. But what what we what do we know about younger workers knowledge of the importance of union history and how it gave us things like the weekend? That's a great question. I think there's plenty of room for a lot more research to answer that in more detail what typing the big answer. We didn't specifically try to quiz people in our survey about whether they knew you know, who George Mee was? Mh if they could explain what the A Cio is or anything like that. It was purely, like, are you measuring their level of the problems they report having it worked, their level of dissatisfaction with work, their experiences with things like harassment or low wages or wage theft or scheduling on, instability. And then their willingness or their interested in doing something about it, including mh frequent And what we found was very similar what we found, know, in varieties of extremities over history, people with more problems on the job, people with more scheduling instability with greater concerns about wages. Are more interested in things like unions. And we continue to find that. And so what we're seeing is that younger workers are reporting greater instability, more concerns, more problems on the job and looking for something to do it. And I think they do associate unions with something that is meant to help make the job better or to help them have a stronger, more consistent voice on the job. Whether they fully understand when it takes to form a union, whether they understand what it takes to make a union successful. And it's not just somebody you pay dues and they do it for you. Means you actually have to be part of the organization and participate and join together in ways that are beyond just paying dues, who knows? When do they fully understand the challenges and the likely retaliation, they're gonna see from employers is also not entirely clear. I think now after, you know, multiple years, of organizing it places like Starbucks and Amazon And so forth. I think some of that is becoming clearer, but of, again, more research really needs to be time to fully pin down how much people know. And then also, what their expectations are and how realistic they are. You know, there certainly is pushback at the top from Amazon and and Starbucks and places like that and That's... I I would think... I mean, the big companies know. That's a distant. Incentive to union. I mean, they they work on it hard to to scare people to frighten them. Oh, yeah. They're very well documented. That a lot of the, particularly the National Labor Relations Act and the the various rules and procedures that govern the right to form a union. And what happened if employers violate those rights through things like illegally firing union organizing, uv organizers, illegally threatening to close a plant or a works site if it utilizes and things of that nature that the penalties for those types of violations are so tiny. That it it's really not worth worrying about and the all the available data seems to suggest the violations of those types of rules are pretty endemic. And there's been legislation over the years it isn't proposed to try to change that dynamic. But so far that's been on castle. Yeah. The power of the big corporations boy. It's a sure change in my lifetime. What is is there an explanation why Americans approval of unions and willingness to vote for them at their workplaces have increased while at the same time, union membership has continued to drop in recent years. Yeah. And that was kind of at the front of the report that we've just highlight that if you look at it there's a very standard question, Gall has been asking it now for decades. It's very like it's kind of a standard approval question, do you approve of of unions? And people can say, yes, they say, no. And that people in general the United States, large major over the entire history, they've been asking this question. People Americans generally say, yes, they approve unions. The number goes up and it goes down, but it's it's certainly well above 50 percent for the entire history of the time that question has been asked. What's been remarkable is in recent years and by recent years, I'm talking about time from say about 20 10 up until the present, the support for unions has been on a steady uptick to the point where it's now close to or at least in 20 22, let's say, it was close to if not as high as it's ever been So somewhere on the order of the high seventies or low 80 percent approval ratings for unions. And then at the same time, the all the measures of union membership particularly this quantity in the business, we call union density, which is just the percentage of employed workers who are members of unions. Has continued to decline, especially in the private sector. And so, you know, what's going on here? Really. Tom and his work, my c author, Tom Coaching and so his work over the years have call this the representation gap. Right? The Yeah. The percentage or the of workers who want unions who don't have them, or in this case, the percentage of people who think they're helpful, but who don't have access to them. And, I think there's a few explanations. 1 is kind of technical dealing with the survey question, and I won't bore you with that. I think the other is that we've seen a lot of upheaval in the economy going all the way back to the Great session in the financial crisis through the relatively slow economic recovery of the obama years, then we hit Covid and everything else. We had a lot going on in the last decade plus in the labor market, in addition to trade, immigration, restructuring that economy, technology, problems with housing it might be, internal migration and you you lump all those things together and people are looking for a way to change things. Feel like they actually in fact have a voice as opposed to just getting pushed around by this big, a more thing called the economy and unions, at least historically have that, that reputation. And so you see some support. That said, it's become increasingly difficult to actually form a union in the United States. And for all the reasons we just described, that, you know, the laws are set up from a very different time in place. That were meant for basically industrial workers, basically were largely men in single earn households in an earlier economy and when the United States was the preeminent industrial power in the world, and they haven't really ever been updated since. And now we've been a very different economy in a very different world. With very different families, different commuting patterns, different pay structures and different employers and different types of firms with and the laws really don't reflect that. And so it's very difficult for new unions to form in the United States. Mh. And I think that's that's the biggest explanation for this gap between generic approval and even willingness to vote for union and the reveals fact that union new membership percentages continue to decline. Wow. Yeah. Interesting. I can I? 1 can certainly see how... You know, with the economic upheaval and with the uncertainty, especially that younger people face these days, You know, it used to be, you you know, in the heyday of the unions and forties and fifties, you know, there was a a single bread winner, and the job that he had was pretty secure, but now, whoa, it is it is shaky and I I can see how the idea of unions and and people sticking together for, some sense of stability in the face of all list, would be appealing to a lot of people. If you just tuned In, we're talking about union curious, a new report, thickness it just just came out. The title of the report is the rise of the union curious support for the union organization among America's frontline workers, and our guest is John A, who is a professor of political economy at Uc San diego School of global policy and strategy. What about the term itself? Union curious? I had certainly never heard that before. I'm curious about that. Sure. I mean, we're we're intentionally being a little, provocative or tricky with that term in the title, but really trying to we're trying to kind of thread 2 needles here, or I guess 1 need to with with 1 piece of threat. And that is the idea that we've seen, as you've already alluded to of of pretty significant uptick in union activism and activity over the last, basically since Covid. We've seen very successful contracts for the teams surge with Ups, with an avoided strike. We saw major strikes in Hollywood. We saw them with the auto workers, and we've seen organizing occurring in a lot of it in media and not nonprofit sectors as well as places like Starbucks. And at least a little bit at Amazon, and we saw a major Ua victory at Chattanooga at the Volkswagen plant there. So there's there's a lot of news and talk about unions and union immunization but certainly at the highest level. And generally with a positive tone, for sustained several years at this point. And you know, that's pretty remarkable and people were rightly proud of that. You've had organizers and frontline workers taking tremendous risks and putting in tons and tons of work to to win these victories, But on the other side, we also see we we saw the gala go poll where people are very positive by unions. But then you also see declining union membership rates. Mh. You see, situations where... Amazon is continuing to avoid having to actually negotiate a contract with the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island, and you've seen no other Amazon fulfillment centers successfully union utilizing. You've seen large chunks of the service sector remain Un, and you continue to see problems in healthcare care, you know, doesn't make it manufacturing and the lack of resolution with the immigration situation the United States is not helping. So you roll all that together, and it be kinda on the 1, it looks really positive. On the other hand, it looks a little dark. The We were trying to say, look, there it's it's you have to be careful. We there are, there is interest. There is excitement. There is real... Demand and appetite for the types of things that historically unions have been able to deliver but it's not the case that you just have this tidal wave of people wanting to join unions and all we have to do is knock on their door at the on a car. It's not either. You have people who are looking for vehicles to make their voice heard and to have some sort of impact on their work but they're looking. They don't sure. And it kinda makes sense because now where a couple generations are removed, and we don't have as many people who come from union households. We don't have that many people who saw their parents or aunts or uncles, going off to the Union hall or being part of union social events or being on the picket line and winning. They are they don't see all of what goes on, the good and some of the not so good that comes with traditional formal American labor unions, but they do have this notion that unions can be helped until that's both a concern and an opportunity. It's a concern because the support or interest in unions might not be as strong as some in the labor movement have been hoping it turns out to be. But it's an opportunity because there's a tremendous, I think demand and opportunity for information education and to really show workers that unions can still win. And in some cases they are winning. Opportunity And it has certainly been in the news. I mean, there's been teacher strikes. There there was the ryder strike in in Hollywood that, was Victoria, so that would... I would think encourage union curiosity at the very least. If not actually joining Union. But as you mentioned risks, there are risks involved in and that that's gotta be a factor in why what explains the hesitation among workers to actually join unions or even say they support unions. Absolutely. Yeah, I think so to your point, I think the the media coverage has been a big driver in some of this carry Mh. There's been more a longer and more diverse and loud conversation around unions than at any time, you know, probably in my lifetime in the last few years. So you're gonna get more interest that way. But then you go and you try to actually find out what take to join a union. You talk to friends who tried to join a union or tried to form a union and or you're you're in a works site where other people are trying to organize a union and you start seeing how employers respond. People start perhaps getting their hours cut back. Mh. It might even get fired if they're organizing, you're put into what are called kind of mandatory meetings with anti union consultants where they go and they give you a whole presentation about why the unions are bad and how horrible they are. And then, again, unions themselves are not perfect. Some have histories of mismanagement, including up until quite recently the United auto workers, there have been situations of discrimination and other types of problems inside of unions in various parts of the country and in various industries and trades. And so that's a real thing to overcome as well And then finally, just winning isn't easy. It's not it's not like you you join a union and it just happens. It even if you have a union, it's risky to go on strike. It's risky to make demands and it takes strategy and tactics, to win. And it also takes membership that is willing to actually be part of it and to do the work, and that's you know, people are busy. They have long commute. They family, they have elders. They have you know, their hours are unstable other states, people pointed it harder and harder and harder to make real world connections with each. There's this kind of epidemic of loneliness we talk about and you could look at that and people have don't have as many sustained ways of forming connections with each other compared to what they may have had in the past. And you need those kinds of connections. If you're gonna sustain the types of actions that unions tend to require if they're gonna win. Interesting, The epidemic of loneliness joining a union is kind of an answer to. To that. You don't feel so lonely if there's other people who have the same, you know, challenges and difficulties. So and But then again, there's union dues and the expense, you know, people are concerned about, you know, how much their dollar buys these days. And and and the... What the creativity of the company bosses, in an old phrase, you know, is remarkable in terms of, you know, adjusting workers, hours, so they don't you know, so that they can really punish the workers. Yeah. Yeah. I... It's funny. I I would actually I don't know how creative the bosses are are or or even need to be at this point that, the kinda of anti union playbook is is well worn tried and true hasn't really changed all that much in, you know, I would say at least since the nineties, as far as I can see tell I'm sure, you know, in different specific organizing campaigns that things have happened. But you know, the it's pretty at this point, the anti union or union avoidance is the term of our industry is pretty much, you know, plug and play off the shelf, you can go hire Any 1 of a number of consulting or law firms that provide more or less same services in this regard and they are playing for more or less the same playbook. I think what's been remarkable with some of the creativity on the union side and trying to anticipate those action actually get around them entice people to continue to be involved, even though those things are continuing to happen. And in some cases, they've been very successful. Some of the stories I've heard out of the Starbucks aren't organizing Have been remarkable. And a lot of it is coming from younger workers talking to each other. Right. So I think that's a that's definitely a bright spot. The the challenge, we talked about the kind of epidemic of loneliness and so forth is that the broader structure of people are embedded it makes it harder and harder harder build connections. So a union when it's working well is gonna provide some of that. If it has a union hall. If it has regular meetings and people actually attend, if it has social events they're actually fun and that people wanna be at. Mh. With their families potentially, that's when things are working well, but that takes time. It's kind of... It is definitely a chicken the egg. We need things that can help you build those types of relationships to get the union off the ground in sustainable. But then you also need to build them to keep the union going. And now, you know, in a situation particularly in things like the service sector or home health aids or with types of workers were, again, in in pretty small workplaces with maybe only 5 or 8 or 9 other workers. Or they're in very unstable schedules or they're, like, a home healthcare aide who might be off by him or herself at different works sites at different points in time. And like, how it finding the others like you and being able to build relationships and organize is by no means an easy thing to do. There's been a lot of creativity to try to, build and organize anyway, but it's a challenge nonetheless Well, yeah. 1 can see that, but be but being creative and, you know, you think about unions that and union meetings, brothers and sisters. People use that term all the time, brothers and sisters. I mean, that's if you're, you know, feeling lonely, what could be better than than having people call you brother and sister. I mean, it's it's just it's a real positive I would think. And I I guess this is true that the report found that support for labor unions among the Us public in general, is at its highest level in over half a century. It didn't always have such, a good name. I mean, frankly, when I was growing up, there was the the Jimmy Hof, corruption stuff that, kinda discourage support for unions at the time. What what explains why it's at its highest level in over half a century? Yeah. I mean, again, an excellent question and there's lots of possible reasons and lots of speculation for that, and I could offer some of that speculation, but I think the key thing is we we're not entirely sure. Part of it is that some of that, some of the m, I guess you could say from the seventies and eighties has it's it's kind of received into the past and into memory it's not something people are focused on. So in particular, some of the excesses or controversies around high profile parts of the Union move it have received. And also, if you remember, like, what unions, you know, through the 19 eighties and into the early 19 nineties experience was a lot especially in manufacturing was a lot of losses. They were there was a term invention at the ton called concession bargaining, which was basically kind of targeting off your back foot. Yeah. We're trying to negotiate it. So then it's not as bad as it might otherwise be which not a terribly compelling offering when you're trying to organize your workers are keep them in the union. So if plants are continually getting closed, people getting laid off in large number and so forth. It's hard. And, you know, unions were not entirely able to prevent those types of outcomes in the big upheaval of the eighties and nineties. But things the economy has changed, this type of work people are doing has changed. And but the needs and desires to have to be treated with respect on the job to have voice, your voice heard to be able to negotiate from a rough position parity with employer over in terms of conditions of work. Those demands are not new and they haven't gone away. And there is a recognition that there is... There are organizations that do let you do that when they're functioning well. We call unions. And people are starting to recognize that. We've also seen some very, you know, charismatic union leaders over the last 2 years from Richard Trump all the way down, Yeah. Who, you know, I think we're to... They weren't getting huge media profiles necessarily, but I think they were comp composing well and in the public eye. I can't remember her name, the head of the flight attendance union. She's pretty Yeah. Magnetic. Yeah. She's she's she's she has she's the force of nature. True. You you gotta have that because the resists to unions. Oh, man. It's it's been... You know, you think back into the early twentieth century, it was tough that. I mean, there'd be a bullets flying, things like that right. And, you know, it it it there there were some tough tough times. I... I... They seem to be a bit more, secure now and a bit not so direct as to to have their their goo beating on people, I don't think. But they can still be pretty effective. And, you know, I guess over 400... The report says over 450000 workers went on strike in 20 23. That's a lot. 1 can never predict how history will move. That's for sure. But it... I wonder if the current moment, the fact that there were so many workers on strike in 20 23. If that will lead to more support and rebuilding worker power or increased employer resistance or some of both? Yeah. An next excellent question and and time will certainly tell and, you know, my that would be like most things probably some of both. Yeah. You know, it the we're in a very kind of strange and unusual economic situation at the moment on a variety of dimensions. And so how much of that played into both the demands for wages and benefit increases and so forth from workers on the 1 hand and the ability of employers to pay on the other is certainly something that is worth considering and whether that's going to change or how it's going to change, is an important thing to consider. The other, again, is just the nature and structure of both people's jobs, what it is like, are you working at home or are you working? Right. Or you on a hybrid situation? Are you a frontline worker that has to be delivering services? Are you directly interacting with customers on a daily basis Or are you more in a production or fulfillment, all these types of things matter both for the ability of workers to organize and where and how they can put leverage on their employers and also what the employers willingness and ability to pay is gonna look like. Mh But 1 of the interesting challenges or you mentioned that, you know, unions in union organizing and strikes used to be far more violent in the United States. Certainly in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and that's absolutely in the case. But it's also worth noting that it's very difficult for workers to organize and strike in many parts of the world where a lot of manufacturing and production is currently taking place. And when there is a strike or something like that. It can be just as violent as anything we saw, you know, in the twentieth century, just we tend not to hear as much about it, whether that's workers in Bangladesh or rep ref of workers in Vietnam or China or somewhere else is you know, depends on the product and depends on the situation, But it's happening just not necessarily in the United States is still still a factor, though you're right. Not not so much in the United States. And, yeah, golly g. That's 1 reason I think why so many companies wanna shift their jobs overseas. I mean, they... Nafta. You know, It it they moved jobs to places where they could pay less, similar fewer environmental, regulations, safety regulations, things like that. If you just tuned in end dear listener, Bert cohen here, the show is keeping democracy live. We're talking about a key aspect of democracy, and that is the right to organize. Labor, a a report just came out. Title of the report is the rise of the union curious support for Union immunization among America's frontline workers and our guest today is John A, who is professor of political economy at use see San Diego school of global policy and strategy. And I did a show about a year ago, about labor practices at Amazon. It's amazing how big Amazon is. Everybody gets stuff from Amazon. I mean, you would think perhaps, maybe this is showing off my my lefty streak here. It should be treated as a public utility because everybody uses it. But it's not a pretty picture at Amazon right now. The company fought union immunization intensely. What is known about the prospects for union immunization at Amazon? Yeah. I mean, this is this gets of the weeds of kind of the formal legal and political process of organizing and getting a union recognized. But in the United States, we have this I think somewhat unfortunate process that the way Unions organize and get recognized is at the unit of something called the bargaining unit, which is a little bit of strange term. It's not all the workers not a company, It's not even all the workers at a particular works site. It could be. So for example, about 20 years ago, you may remember as 1 of the few times people successfully union united a Walmart. It was a group of meat cutters. At a Walmart in Texas. If I remember correctly. And so it wasn't even... It was at 1 location at 1 Walmart and it wasn't even all the workers at that location of Walmart. It was just the meat cutters. They're the only ones and they petition they had an N election. They won the election and then they were then had the legal right to represent those subset of workers in bargaining with Walmart and Walmart promptly shut down the the meat. Mh the fresh meat container or the for the fresh meat services All Walmart. North America and least in the United States. But it's this this difficulty of, having to organize not even company by company, but, like, works site by works site by works site. And you're seeing this both at Starbucks and in Amazon where you have 1 of the many Amazon fulfillment centers, the 1 in Staten Island. That Right voted to Union united. And under the au of a brand new independent union, call the They call the Amazon Labor union. And they won that election the right to bargain, but now, you know, what as is pretty common. This is again, as part of that standard playbook. Amazon has continued to drag out. It has not even really... At least as far as I know, begun to negotiate with the union at all, and it's now several years past the moment when they actually won the right to represent. The workers at the fulfillment center in Staten Island. And that's kinda standard. And what you've then seen after that is continued attempts to organize other Amazon fulfillment centers in other parts of the country have failed most notably in Be, Alabama. And others. And so right now, the only union fulfillment center and all of United States is the 1 that Island. And even that 1 has been unable to effectively bargain for a contract, much less get a contract. And it's it's you know, this is an extreme example of the kind of standard employer playbook. And you know, there's there's a lot of workers and very comparatively very few employers, owners of of the the industries and the businesses, but they have a lot of a political power, the the money. I mean, as Bob Dillon once said, but money doesn't talk it swear. The report says that what is quote noteworthy is the marked and sustained increase in union approval since 20 10 with support in 20 22 higher than at any time since 19 65. What factors explain that? Yeah. So I think that 20 20... That 20 10 date is a indicator that it's... It... You know, it's not all it's coincidental, that's right in the middle of the financial crisis. It's right a large chunk of Americans and not just, American frontline workers in the service sector or in hospitality something like that. But, you, all across the economic spectrum and across the various industries and sectors of the economy are all seeing wild disparities and how different groups of people are treated when push comes to shove in the economy. So That was during the financial crisis and you saw huge amounts of money going to support major financial institutions, rightly or wrongly and then fairly poultry support going to the rest of the economy. I think once you start seeing that repeatedly and you see that again, going into the the 20 16 20 20 period, you have the Covid upheaval and how some groups of workers were considered to be essential but they were not treated as actually essential, They were more treated as disposable. You know, you see sort of linking those events together, and it it's not that surprising. And again, that particular gall question about union support, I think Todd ends up being responsive to more things than just interest in unions. It's kind of a barometer for people's rough perceptions of how well or how fairly they're being treated in the economic system in general. So people have looked not our study, but others have looked at correlates of that particular question and it tends to go up and down with the economic cycle, for example in things of that nature. So I think it's picking up kind of the broad and growing sense of like discontent or fairness with the structure of the U. S. Economy geographically across industry and across time and generations that people seem to be feeling and we're seeing it lots of places including politics. No, for sure. And I I sometimes disagree or argue even with people to my left to say, well, it's capitalism is the problem. No. It's not greed is the problem in my opinion. There's an capitalism can work. If people have if if if enough people can benefit from it. And that's 1 of the aspects of of unions. They're not anti capitalist. That's for sure. But you know, it it... The economy can be made to work in a more fair way as John Maynard Kay talked about, and you know, the struggle goes on and on and on. And there there is reluctance to to join unions and pulling there's... There was a lot of polling cited in this report, and it's always imp emphasized, especially now in the digital age. It's not uncommon in many polls for respondents to just say don't know or. K. Please explain perhaps you can explain some of the findings about such a non answer when workers are asked about joining a union. How how prevalent are they don't know? Yes, that's a great question that that's actually kind of the key of the report you mentioned the union curious and that was our kind of provocative term for basically for people who went asked about whether they would support a union or whether they would vote for a union in their workplace, they would say don't know. And because that is, there's a tendency in a lot of public opinion research to kind of ignore those people. And sometimes that makes sense and other times, I think it might be a little misleading and this is 1 of them. And we try to show that by looking at this over time about how the... If you look a different survey is asking the same question over time, what you see, is the proportion of people who answer the question about whether they would support a union in their workplace the proportion saying no. Keeps going down. Particularly in the last day, like, 8 years. Shrinking resistance to unions. But it doesn't mean you have increasing support. And so what we show is you're not you're not getting you're getting shrinking resistance. Yes, but you're not really getting a lot of increased support. What you do have is a really large and growing segment who don't know who are saying on surveys that they don't know. And we call them the union carriers. They're are people who seem they're... They seem willing or at least open minded enough to not reject the idea, but they're not willing to accept it either. At least when you ask them on a survey. And that is in some cases, depending on the survey, the majority or at least the plural of the survey respondents. And we think that's important thing to note because there's a tendency to, I think focus on union wins and the high levels of union support in a generic kind of gall question, we think that when you ask them this question about would you go for you at your works signing a lot of this am that that am is important to recognize because it shows that there there's an opportunity, but there's also serious concerns. And at least some of those concerns, we argue stem from just a lack of exposure and understanding of unions. People... They haven't been around unions like they have. I don't have a history with them. Not true. They don't know as much about what you expect. Rightly or wrongly, and they also don't necessarily have a good idea about what it takes and what they themselves would have to do. Right. To make it so of the union as strong as possible and it's able is most likely to win. Yeah. It can be a heavy lift. That's for sure. To build union membership over the long term, Of course, younger workers will need to play important roles in persuading their older coworkers. Talk about some of the challenges there, please. Yeah, that's a great 1. So 1 of the key other findings in the report is just this large generational divide. We find that younger workers are much less resistant to unions than older workers. So they're more so and that also means they're both more supportive. So the percentage of younger workers saying yes. They would vote for a union is higher than for older workers. But the same thing is also true about the union curious, the percentage of younger workers saying that they don't know. Is also higher among, for younger workers and for older workers. Mh And so this... That there's definitely support for the younger worker from the younger workers and there's a lot more curiosity or at least openness from the younger workers. And then the question is how does that convert if if it does into durable union organizations and wins. And so a few things I think have to happen there. 1 is that I think these younger workers are often gonna have to take the lead And that's not that's it's not unusual. That's often the case, the young people are the ones who have to be out in front of some of these things partly because they're able. Yeah. For a variety of reasons. Mh. The other is that they can set an example that older workers been kind of feel sheep. If they're not taking part. Like, wait. The youngsters are out there doing this. They're out there demanding a raise or, you know, better safety procedures on the job or whatever. I should be willing do that too. Younger workers also might be a position to take more risks, perhaps because they don't they don't yet have families, They don't have as many necessarily financial responsibilities or others depending on them. So as a result, you know, we mentioned that starting a union union or being in in with strike. It can be a risky proposition. The younger workers might be in a position to take on some more of those risks ironically than some of the older workers. Where the older workers I think are gonna have a lot to contribute is going to be with their historical knowledge and understanding and experience, particularly if they our x or former union members who have some knowledge of how unions work and how to make them work better that they can bring some of that into these new or these workplaces that they can help, you know, make sure that compromise is necessary in all the needs and voices of all the workers that a particular works Need to be represented. And so they need to be acting as well. They can't just be young board right advanced because there's gonna be different concerns we're doing older workers and younger workers. And the third thing is gonna be thinking about things... I think 1 of the really important things gonna get training, ups skill, improving the ability to, constant you know, the kind of constant improvement. That's necessary in the current, you know, business environment, and that that it includes workers. And passing down, knowledge and experience both on the job and also how to negotiate well, how to work with employers is gonna be something the older workers. Right. Are potentially in a position to pass down. But that... That's for sure. And and every now and then, wisdom. I mean, with age comes wisdom that can be passed on. Really? I mean, I sometimes young people don't wanna see that, but it it happens to be true. And there's a there's a lot of history that can be useful in the moment. If you just tuned in, Bert Cohen here. The show is keeping democracy alive. Our guest today is John A a professor of political economy, you see San Diego. And we're talking about a a new report that he was a c author of, and the title of the report is, the rise of the union curious. And I I wonder if many employers, try to beat unions at their own game by improving working conditions, pay and vacation time and listening to their workers more. Absolutely. I mean, that that's been a long. It's an old old old thing It's 1 of the benefits unions have for workers in general not just for union members. Is that when unions are strong and when they're able to negotiate and when they're able to win, it isn't just union workers who benefit, other workers also benefit because those employers then try to improve how they're operating, pay higher wages and so forth in order to retain their own workforce and in their mind at least prevent Yeah. Their own workplaces for becoming union recognized. And so we saw that actually in, just this most recent period with the auto workers when they successfully struck and signed substantial improvements in their contracts with the Us big 3, we all of a sudden saw right away a whole bunch of new and improved wage in our and benefit provisions. From a whole bunch of the non union car manufacturing sites in other parts of the country that aren't represented by the Ua so just coincidence, of course. Yes. So of course. And so, you know, that's to be expected. That's 1 of the the benefits of unions, But I think another more aspirational approach. This is something that's pretty widely established in parts of Europe, including Germany, is to alter how unions bargain in the the way in which they're recognized and formed legally. And so in Germany, for example, you tend to have large industrial unions that represent entire segments of the economy bargain with employers across multiple employers across entire industries. And so in that situation, you end up getting a union contract that covers a whole industry and all of the employers in the same industry are more or less facing the same union and the same wages. So they don't have an individual incentive to worry so much about whether they're particular job side. Is Union United because it's not gonna be paying union way is no matter what. And that type of a situation, you can get a much less contentious relationship between management Mh. And unions because the the kind of tooth and nail every workplace, every Amazon warehouse fight that you see in the United States, it's just not something that occurs in Germany. U. Yeah. And they have a pretty strong economy there in strong unions as well. And It seems to me in the 19 eighties, I think there was talk about ending the push and pull between employers and employees by having worker parked to a patient in ownership and management. Whatever happened to that idea. That, I mean, that's specific proposal. I I don't recall the details of it, and I couldn't tell you No. But it's an ongoing, it's certainly an ongoing idea that's been proposed. So the thing that they have in Germany going back to Germany is a thing called Works Councils, which kind of work parallel with unions. They don't they have unions and works councils, not either or. And works councils are formal worker representatives that are elected by the workers themselves that then, typically they'll, especially in very large companies actually have seats on the Board of directors of the company itself. So they are voting, they get to see all of the financial information of the company. They're voting over the hiring and firing and the Ceo, all that kind of stuff. Wow, and their direct worker representatives in the the board. Of the firm. And they... At lower levels, they also have relationships with with site managers and so forth to of transmit information and transmit worker perspectives. They also have unions who are they organize gonna or what that are the organizations that are responsible for organizing workers and representing them directly in their bargaining relationship with their employer. And so they have both of those operating in parallel. And there's no reason why, you know, you could in fact have works councils and not unions it's possible, but typically the reason why you have works councils is because you had strong unions. In the United States, it would require pretty substantial upheaval of our existing being federal legislation to allow for something like that in the United States, but it's certainly something that's doable and there's a variety of voices including some voices out of the business community that have been interested in these types Mh rate, in the United States. Seems to make a lot of sense. We talked about Gen z and how important young people are. But what about union curiosity by demographic groups like women, blacks, Hispanics. What where's where where are they on union curiosity? Yeah. We looked at that, specifically, we looked at it by industry of employment, so we... The our specific survey, we looked at frontline workers in 5 major industries. And we also then looked at it by race by gender, and by age. And we found we detailed some of the differences in the report, but the differences frankly weren't that huge it wasn't that it they jumped out as the the level of support or lack of support for unions was dramatically different among black workers compared to non black workers, for example, or among women compared to men. There were some differences particularly within certain industries, but again, not massive. The really... The 1 that really, really, really stuck out was this generational difference that the younger workers, were just dramatically more interested in Unions less likely to oppose them. And and also, if they weren't, supportive of them, they were more likely to say they didn't know. They weren't sure about them. So their level of resistance to organization was much lower. Their support was higher and they've among those who didn't support them outright, the level of curiosity about unions was also higher among young workers and so that's the the finding we really keyed on. It's it's so nice to have good news about the young generation and and to have some degree of options optimism about what they're up to. And I hate to ask this question, but what the heck? It doesn't look as likely now as it did, a few weeks ago, if Trump gets in. What do you think that will increase labor? What that that would be an interesting... I mean, it doesn't look as likely as it did again. But how how do you that how do you think that would affect union organizing? It's a different. That's an interesting question. So is a few responses to that. I think the first 1 is obviously the vast majority of the organized labor movement. So unions themselves, union presidents and executive board members and so forth are very antagonist states and the former president and have already most of the Middle East formally endorsed initially Joe Biden and then it seems like they're now moving very quickly to the Kamala harris. Yeah. So their political engagement there seems to be consistent with what they've done in the past. 1 thing we do know is that 1 of the most politicized parts of the U. S. Federal government is the national labor Relations board. So Republican presidents tend to come in and replace people very quickly and put in very anti Union very pro corporate on the. And this is the part of the federal apparatus that governs how unions kind of the fairness of union elections what employers are allowed to do in response to union challenges, whether they're gonna recognize various complaints that workers are making and so forth. That's the ultimate entity that decides what's okay And what's not? So Republicans will be, you know, if Trump winds, you can expect an That'll be very antagonist to labor very likely to roll back, for example, some recent rules on wages and hours and on things like, overtime pay. There's a series of other proposals right now, things about, like, heat and heat protection for workers. Right. That are in the works that this is not an Anymore than another part of the government, you can imagine that those would be stalled or even rollback. And you can imagine a very antagonist relationship between the White house and Unions, particularly union need decides to go out on strike. And we've already seen this with Trump's attempts to connect with the team surge at the National convention. Yeah his subsequent response to the Ua in a series of social media statements where he went after the Ua and its current president in very, Trump in terms. After just, you know, trying to show that, you know, workers at the teams stores are are Trump voters. That said, you know, Union members are a huge number of Americans. They're very diverse group of people. Yeah. They contain all kinds. They're all over the country. Including a substantial portion of them who likely did cast their vote for Trump before and would do so again in this election. So that is also likely to be the case, and that's gonna vary, you know, across different groups in different parts of the country. And those people still are union members and they should be as full members of the union and their voices also are part of the conversation. But I think that how that plays out at the higher levels of politics is is not gonna be terribly important. And if you're likely to see kind of a very anti union federal government, if Trump again. Well, let us make sure that doesn't happen. I kinda like, America as a democracy as a republic. Now, if people are interested in looking at the report or if they're union curious them what websites can you suggest that people take a look at? Yes. So I mean the economic policy institute is the organization that put out the report and worked with us to kind of proof proofreading and format and everything. So they are great. If you put in to Google, like Api and Union curious. I'm sure it'll it'll take you there very quickly. The actual Url for the report is p dot org publication slash rise of the union curious with dashes in between all of those words in the last part. But I doubt anyone will remember that. I think Google's is your best your best friend here in terms of tracking it down. John, A quest. Thank you so much for being with us, and it's, I I'm getting a sense of realistic optimism for, unions as we move forward. And for for better, you know, in realities for working people. Thank you so much for choosing chris. Thanks for your interest in the report. Thank you. 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