Union density has been in sharp decline since the 1970s and recently reached a low at 9.9 percent in 2024. 

Despite a recent uptick in union elections and increased enthusiasm for the labor movement from a new generation of workers, the fact of the matter is that current strategies to reverse the decline are failing. To increase union density by even 1 percent, we would need to get more than one million additional workers unionized through the National Labor Relations Board — an especially tall order when you consider that unions lost nearly 170,000 members overall between 2023 and 2024 to retirement, decertification, and more.

That’s an uphill fight even before you consider the new administration’s assault on labor. With Musk and the Trump administration continuing to batter the remaining defenses of organized labor — attempting to remove Gwynne Wilcox from the NLRB and Cathy Harris from the Merit Systems Protection Board, challenging collective bargaining rights for federal workers, and kneecapping the Department of Labor at every possible juncture — the time is ripe to fight back with whatever we have at our disposal and open our minds to new and creative ideas for building worker power.

While the NLRB is an extremely important part of protecting working people from corporations seeking to leech them of every last cent, we need to be prepared to look to options outside of the arduous, bottlenecked process of traditional union elections. It is for this reason that the Center for Work and Democracy out of Arizona State University released our 2025 report, “Beyond the NLRB: Contemporary Strategies and Practices for Labor Movement Renewal.”

In the report we analyze eight different styles of worker organizing that work with or outside of the NLRB system. Five of the strategies and tactics listed have been around for decades and have proven successful at organizing workers at scale and gaining concrete wins for the working class. These include sectoral bargaining, bargaining for the common good, rank-and-file organizing, independent and minority unionism, and worker-driven social responsibility programs. The report also offers three alternative strategies — fresh, new perspectives that, while not as battle-tested as the previous strategies and tactics, inspire some real promise for the future of worker organizing.

Healthcare Rising Arizona

The first of these three promising innovations is Healthcare Rising Arizona, a group who has built a novel mechanism for working-class organization by involving workers in the citizen-driven ballot initiative process. This membership-based organization is non-partisan and focused on harnessing the power of electoral politics to support the needs, desires, and goals of their membership base.

In the last three years, Healthcare Rising has added two significant wins to their belt, passing Proposition 209 in 2022 and Proposition 139 in 2024. Both of these ballot measures — 209 limiting predatory medical debt collection in the state and 139 enshrining abortion rights in the Arizona constitution — were campaigns requested by and invested in by HRA’s constituency.

 What makes Healthcare Rising Arizona unique from other interest groups that petition for and pass state-level ballot measures is that they are not just passing ballot measures and then dissolving. They are passing measures and building workers’ political and organizational power through a membership base of real life Arizonans, 2,000 strong and growing, that want to see their state become a better place to live in. The power of HRA lies outside of the traditional pathway of collective bargaining and in the realm of community, civic, and political engagement.

Jobs to Move America

The next promising innovation featured in “Beyond the NLRB” is Jobs to Move America, an organization that works to leverage public procurement processes to raise working standards, benefit local communities, and ease the path to unionization. Their focus is primarily in securing government contracts for local companies that have fair pay and safe business practices in mind for their workers.

In their own words, “Jobs to Move America combines strategic research, policy advocacy, and coalition organizing to harness the power of our public dollars to create good jobs and healthy communities across the country.”

While many of the contracts secured by Jobs to Move America have been in metropolitan areas that tend to have more worker support from their local and state governments, some of the contracts have directly impacted manufacturers in areas that have less structural support for workers. JMA’s work in the public procurement process has created a point of leverage to advance worker power and unionization in areas in which union density is particularly low.

According to our report, some of their most impressive wins include adding community benefits agreements to “a $305 million contract with New Flyer Industries to build 550 clean-fuel buses; a $890 million contract with Kinkisharyo for 175 new light-rail cars; and a $1.45 billion contract with Kawasaki for 535 subway cars.” In their effort to divert public funds toward companies that actually care about workers, Jobs to Move America has bettered the conditions and lives of over 4,000 workers across the country.

Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee

The third and final innovative strategy surrounds the work of the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee, or “EWOC.” EWOC formed during the Covid-19 pandemic to meet a surge in demand for workplace organizing assistance and has helped with hundreds of worker- driven campaigns since, passing many along to unions for certification drives.

Their volunteer-run organization is wholly digital and acts as a resource hub for workers interested in organizing their workplaces, but who may also require some assistance from external supporters before moving forward. EWOC’s innovation lies in the fact that they not only provide written resources for workers, but that they also directly connect workers to organizers and unions with whom they can continue their campaign. After the initial push from EWOC, these fledgling workplace unions leave the nest.

At any given time the organizing intermediary supports roughly 100 workplaces in beginning their organizing journey. In the six years since their foundation, EWOC has passed off about 200 to unions across the country. 

Healthcare Rising Arizona, Jobs to Move America, and EWOC all seek to support the working class across a variety of arenas — electoral politics, government contracts, and aiding the work of the National Labor Relations Board. None of these — or any one strategy, for that matter — will work as a silver bullet to save the labor movement, reverse the decades-long decline in union density, and close the every-yawning chasm of wealth inequality in the United States. However, they do give us a good place to start.

While things in the labor movement may seem bleak, it is more important than ever to rely on fresh, creative, and innovative ideas to fight back against corporate greed and the might of plutocracy. Chins up and eyes open, comrades.

---