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On Labor Day, support for unions plunges to all-time low

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
09/07/09 8:42 AM EDT

This Labor Day brings word of a new Gallup poll showing that American public support for labor unions has taken a sharp dive in the last year and is at its lowest point since Gallup began polling in 1936.

In response to the question, "Do you approve or disapprove of labor unions?" just 48 percent of respondents said they approve, while 45 percent said they disapprove. That's a steep fall from August 2008, when the numbers were 59 percent approve, 31 percent disapprove, and it's the first time approval of unions has ever fallen below 50 percent.

Before this year, American support for unions had remained remarkably stable for nearly four decades. In August 2001, in the first months of George W. Bush's presidency, Gallup's results for the same question were 60 percent approve, 32 percent disapprove. In August 1997, in Bill Clinton's second term, they were 60-31. In 1985, during Ronald Reagan's presidency, the figures were 58-27. In 1978, during Jimmy Carter's time in the White House, they were 59-31. And in 1972, during Richard Nixon's, they were 60-27.

The new poll also shows that many Americans believe the future is bleak for unions. In response to the question, "Thinking about the future, do you think labor unions in this country will become stronger than they are today, the same as today, or weaker than they are today?" 48 percent said unions will become weaker, versus just 24 percent who said unions will become stronger.

Broken down by political party, Gallup found support for unions has fallen the most among critically-important independent voters. Last year, 63 percent of independents said they approved of unions. Now, just 44 percent say the same thing. Among Republicans, 29 percent support unions, versus 38 percent last year. Only among Democrats does union support remain strong, although it, too, has fallen: 66 percent support today, versus 72 percent support a year ago.

The numbers do not bode well for Democrats' desire to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, or card-check, which would eliminate the right to a secret ballot in union elections, or even a weaker version of the bill, which would provide for mandatory arbitration in unionization battles. This Labor Day, for organized labor, the news is very bad.

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Reader Comments

All comments on this page are subject to our Terms of Use and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Examiner or its staff. Comment box is limited to 250 words.

David Becker Mich

Sep 7, 2009

I would answer the poll by supporting labor unions, but just barely. The thuggery we have seen from the unions in assaulting people at Tea Party rallies, and the fact of an exploding government workforce and concomitant government approved unions frightens me. If the Unions adopted a modern business model, and stopped being lapdogs for an ever larger, more threatening government, they might do better.

utabutta

Sep 7, 2009

Unions' modern business model?? Right on, David!! That will surely come to pass........WHEN PIGS FLY!

Extraneus

Sep 7, 2009

Gallup didn't ask about it, but I wonder how the recent purple-shirted SEIU town-hall thuggery affected public opinion about unions. I know it affected mine.

Casual Observer

Sep 7, 2009

After witnessing the organized rape by Obama of the taxpayer/stockholder concerning GM and Chrysler, the SIEU thuggery, the astroturfing of meetings ($15/hr to sit in chairs), who could still support unions in their current form?

Rick Caird

Sep 7, 2009

I wonder how many people were appalled by the sellout to the UAW, at the expense of the bondholders, in the government takeover of GM and Chrysler.

I also wonder about the public reaction to government employee unions. We see these pension plans which will bankrupt government. We see government employee raises when so many private workers are losing jobs and hours and would be delighted just to have the same pay.

Rick

CDR M

Sep 7, 2009

I don't think the problem is with the rank and file of the unions but more to do with the union leadership. Most are pro/lean Democrat and do things that DO NOT improve things for their workers. To wit, why do unions push against immigration enforcement when lax enforcement allows illegals to work cheap and undercut the wages of American workers? Look at the meat packing industry wages and probably agricultural ones as well.

the aura of truthiness

Sep 7, 2009

The big problem today is government employee unions. They are driving the massively increasing costs of government.

Yes, government is bailing out the UAW, and that is a problem. Government unions are an even bigger problem.

Conor

Sep 7, 2009

We don't need unions.

Laws now protect workers. Unions only serve as political machines who blackmail our leadership.

Non-union workers who are jobless and demoralized should be furious that the auto bailouts are essentially payments to the UAW. They didn't have to take a pay cut.

And all you have to do is look at Detroit and see how effective unions are for the general economy.

GFM

Sep 7, 2009

It is a shame that the Union movement has taken such a hit this year. Union labor has been important in building America. However, people realize that Unions had a major hand, along with other factors, in the demise of GM and Chrysler. Sadly, it is often the leadership calling the shots which often does not speak for the membership. In a word, unions have gotten what they deserve and it will only get worse.

ranger 8-89

Sep 7, 2009

The thing that turned me off was the 10 billiion alloted in the health care reform bill just for unions to continue to have their health care thats no like what the rest of the public will get.

Letalis Maximus, Esq.

Sep 7, 2009

Well, the federal government agreed last spring to basically give the UAW (by way of GM) $30 billion. At the time, and probably still, GM was burning through $1 billion every 15 days. Doing the math, that was enough money to make sure that GM didn't go belly up before December 2010.

And what happens in November 2010?

Hint: The mid-term elections.

You don't suppose that a group of Democrat politicians would be so desperate to keep 1000's of UAW workers employed through the mid-terms that would throw away $30 billion of your money do you?

Naw, they would never do *that*.

Kev

Sep 7, 2009

What Conor said. Unions made sense in the days when there were sweatshops here, but now they just serve to make would-be members of the productive class into unproductive, lazy non-workers who feel like they have a right to their job, at the expense of doing what they were hired to do in the first place. The thuggery aspect is merely the "icing" on an already rotten cake.

Joe Bird

Sep 7, 2009

In Chicago, Ceramic Tile Setters get paid $40.30/hr and the Union gets $19.80/hr on top of this amount for a total of $60.10 an hour total package.

The average wage hourly wage in this country is approximately $17.00/hr.

These dollar amounts are typical for all union trades.

Is it any wonder that union tradesmen and UAW members are losing their jobs or sitting at home because of a lack of work?

Unions are just as responsible for the collapse of the US Auto Industry as the greedy Corporate leeches.

Unions served a purpose at one time that benefited most Americans. That time has passed.

Piddypat

Sep 7, 2009

True story: I guy I know worked freelance on carpentry in Boston, and a union boss found out. He came and visited the soon-to-be-pizza shop long enough to be sure there weren't any security cameras, then threatened the owner. The next day, 6-8 unemployed union workers were outside picketing the non-union labor of my friend. A day later, the union boss came back, and for a measly $300 from the shop owner, he called off the moron picketers, who had no idea he was using them. The non-union labor continued until the work was done, and incidentally, my friend's tools were stolen a couple weekends later—but not the tool boxes and belts. The cops immediately commented "got union problems, huh?" and didn't do a thing to recover the $2300 in tools that were vital to my friend's efforts to feed his family. Our church people ponied up and bought him all new tools, but no thanks to Bean Town Unions!

Bernie In Omaha

Sep 7, 2009

Finally some good news, the corrupt unions are at least losing favor in a survey. If politicians stopped taking their money and then enforcing union beneficial laws, I think they would just disappear.

PappyHappy

Sep 7, 2009

Is this what we voted for??????

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/6147211/Barack-Obama-accused-of-making-Depression-mistakes.html

Steven G

Sep 7, 2009

No wonder independents are abandoning Obama. They have absorbed so much BS from conservative talk radio that they believe that being a paid a decent wage with good benefits is viewed as greedy while Wall Street financial firms and banks executives are getting paid obscene amounts of money is not a problem. Look at the facts people. Unions built the Middle Class in our society and their demise is leading to economic ruin.

factis

Sep 7, 2009

The The Unites States' Internal Revenue Service is staffed top-to-bottom with thousands of union-member employees whose generous salaries and benefits are financed with funds from the taxes they collect. There is something that is basically WRONG with that scenario.

Moteefus

Sep 7, 2009

Excluding uniformed personnel, how many people does the Federal Government employ? Over 1,000,000? All union members? Mostly Democrats? Jeez, what a racket! IMO, the Federal Government SHOULD NOT be the biggest employer in the country. Period.

phillyfanatic

Sep 7, 2009

SEIU gives the labor movement an evil name. These flacks are thugs. Unions can be helpful if they give the poorest of workers some perks. But, most unions are just clones of the socialist pacifist Dem Party and therefore not to be trusted. And the Justice Dept. will not investigate these crooks like SEIU or ACORN, really a community organizing for radical causes union. Thinking Dems , Reagan Dems and Indies must vote Pub, giving them another chance to clean up our Republic before this Soviet tyranny ruins our free enterprise system,.

Tawney

Sep 7, 2009

For the ost part, major unions like the AFL CIO and Teamsters represent laborers whose skills are so easily attained that those skills have virtually zero worth on the open market. These laborers must be propped up by unions because a trained chimp can work an assembly line or learn to clean a floor. Major labor unions simply inflate wages and benefits for workers with few marketable skills.

n8whit

Sep 7, 2009

How about the fact that unions are for amnesty of illegal aliens (falling in lock step with the Democrat party) which would be devastating to American workers.

Rich M.

Sep 7, 2009

@ guy who said "labor unions were critical to the building of the country":

So was slavery, u wanna advocate for that, too?

Marcla77

Sep 7, 2009

Trade Union Movement is DEAD. Trade union movement's adherances to the scheme of the application of minimum wage is a reflection that Trade Union Movement is a silent partner of Capitalism.
In effect the workers and labour sector is losing hope that the trade union movement has the genuine capacity and capability to resurrect them from their economic all time high miseries.

mainto4

Sep 7, 2009

I have worked as a supervisor in a union factory, I supervised union civil servants when in the military, and I have watched unions drive over 5,000 jobs away from our little corner of Kentucky. Forget politics, unions kill productivity. If I was a factory owner and my workers voted to have a union, I would padlock the gates and liquidate the assets ASAP.

sub

Sep 7, 2009

Excuse me. Unions are historically the bastion of thuggery and corruption. I am a member of a union. In instances where they achieve power, they seek to shield bad employees from responsibility, seek to mandate inefficiency-ridden work rules. seek to replace the ideas of excellence and achievement for a we-are-all-the-same monotony. The goal of protecting employees from ruthless employers is a good goal. That is not what unions do, and via gov't legislation those scenarios are rare today, vs. 100 yrs ago. Basically, unions serve to just make us less competitive vs. the world. Period. End.

And union management and employees like their easy jobs, and don't want to lose them to the truth....

Mary

Sep 7, 2009

I remember when former teamster president Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. Was this because of his sterling character? Hardly. It was because of years of union corruption and mob association.
Everyone in Detroit knew who did him in and why.

lydiagreen20@yahoo.com

Sep 7, 2009

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Roy_ExNavy

Sep 7, 2009

Union employees are the most notoriously lazy people in America. The U.S. Auto industry is a prime example of this idiotic unionization going wrong. I've heard the insane lengths for union compliance that businesses do......we will be very close to Europe if we let this card check....or whatever they want to call it......pass......I call it...."losing the secret ballot.....so a union thug(s) can bully me" act

Big Mac

Sep 7, 2009

As a conservative, and someone who has had first-hand experience with union malfeasance, I still try to be fair. There is no doubt that they certainly had their day in the past. "The past" defined as a time decades before I was born, and I'm 50. So, not surprising others would think same.

BobB

Sep 7, 2009

And now the Goonions want to "expand" the freedom of workers by doing away with secret ballots on union organizing elections. How sweet! A couple of thugs can come by and make you tell them whether you want union representation or not. If you're opposed, you might want to consider having someone else start your car afterward.

Platon Rigos

Sep 8, 2009

It is hard to pinpoint the blame as to why unions are failing, but the weakness of unions is exactly why the American worker is so susceptible to be sold a lot of bilge from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other rabble rousers on radio and TV. In an atmosphere where he gets harangued to hate queers, liberals, blacks Latinos and abortions he has often forgotten why and how he has been relegated to the back of the bus when it comes to improvement in his life style.
In the last 30 years he has been forced to take substantial pay cuts and accept a loss of a number of benefits as his bosses have been making out like bandits. The 40 hours a week and overtime pay is thing of the past.
And now he is being told that getting a solid health care system, one that his brethren overseas enjoy as a right is too ruinous for the nation. As before a number of his friends are buying it.

Felix335

Sep 8, 2009

Unions once had a real purpose. Both my Grandfathers were charter UAW members and participated in the infamous sit down strikes of 1936 to force GM to recognize the UAW. As a youngster, we moved away from Flint, MI ("Home of GM" Buick City, RIP) because my Dad saw GM caving in to every whim and demand of the UAW to avoid strikes. We moved, on purpose, to a Right to Work State (AZ) and prospered. The UAW killed GM (although GM execs and piss poor research and development by GM contributed too) by too high wages for unskilled and semi-skilled UAW drones plus clearly exorbitant health and other benefits plus excessive and wasteful work rules. In the early 80's,
the average UAW "line jockey" made more than firemen, policemen, teachers and RNs in Flint. "A world turned upside down"!. Go to Flint now and see how a heavily unionized city looks and works after they kill off the Golden Goose.

Dilligas

Sep 8, 2009

All government workers are NOT union members. Government workers salaries, benefits, etc are set by congress, GAO, etc., members have little say in it. Government union members are missing one significant tool...THEY CAN'T GO ON STRIKE (ask the air traffic controllers that that were fired by Reagan). I don't like unions (mainly leaders) but try not to crucify the workers for what the people in control do.

Trouble

Sep 8, 2009

There is a big distance between rank-and-file union members vs. union leadership - just as there is a big distance between the American nation at large vs. our political class.

Unions & Senior Management = Dumb and Dumber

IGnatius T Foobar

Sep 8, 2009

Unions are the number one reason why manufacturing jobs have, by and large, moved outside the USA. Unions artificially drive prices up. Let the free market do what it does best and you will see a wonderful resurgence of the American manufacturing sector! Jobs will reappear -- maybe not at the super-high wages the union thugs would like, but it's better than having ten percent of the country unemployed, isn't it?

Feeman Ng

Sep 8, 2009

1 to that. I want to hire Americans but I can't because the unions make them too expensive!

Gerard

Sep 8, 2009

Wow. The comments show a severe lack of even basic knowledge of labor history. As for the "corruption" labor unions are no more corrupt than big corporations. Period. Organized labor brought us the middle class - trade giveaways took away those jobs, not union pay. We should have protected corporate profits while STILL protecting well-paid union jobs. The ability for American corporations to up and leave our country with no penalty (even incentives to leave!) have destroyed the manufacturing base - not union wages. There's two sides to every story and remember - corporate power has the money to put their side on full display.

Dannielle

Sep 9, 2009

What most people fail to acknowledge is the fact that labor unions are MONOPOLIES! In so many industries (i.e automobile) their exclusive control labor provides the union with the ability to manipulate prices. They raise wages above competitive levels by restricting the supply of labor to various firms and industries. In doing so, however, they have reduced the number of jobs available in unionized companies. That second effect occurs because of the basic law of demand: if unions successfully raise the price of labor, employers will purchase less of it. Thus, unions are a major anticompetitive force in labor markets. Their gains come at the expense of consumers, nonunion workers, the jobless, taxpayers, and owners of corporations (which in the case of the GM and Chrysler, is us the taxpayers).

JinTX

Sep 9, 2009

Oh PUHLEEZE Gerard I work for one of the largest corporations in the world. We don't bully, we follow rules, and corruption is NOT tolerated, from the top, down. I also belonged to a union - and was told HOW to vote, and WHEN to vote and when I balked - I was STALKED by 3 reps until I rode with them to the polling station. I've never been bullied by my current employer nor coworkers. I've never seen a coverup of violations or poor quality due to seniority in my years of employment with my current EVIL corporation. My company pays rates - without a union, and I would quit my job in a heart beat if they brought in the union.

J. Keen Holland

Sep 10, 2009

To: CDR M -
That attachment of union leaders to political rather than worker interests is hardly something new.My mother told me that when she was young (1930s) she heard her grandfather complain that the leader of the UMW were abandoning the interests of the miners for politics. My great-grandfather had been an organizer for the UMW back in the days when ther3e was aprice on his head and his family had to stay in Indiana while he worked in West Virginia.
When I worked at OEO in the 70s, the AFGE held meetings on how to frustrate Nison administration policies in the agency.

teapartyanyone?

Sep 26, 2009

And does no one seem to get that a big expense in our broken healthcare system is because of nurses' unions? Many nurses make more than private family practice physicians. It's not just hospitals treating indigents...just think of the cost for nurses plus their big benefit packages. Hellloooo!

Dave

Oct 6, 2009

I agree - Unions only lead to bad outcomes. It was the Unionization of the 13 Colonies that lead to the creation of the United States. Bad idea. Do you agree or are you anti-American? Careful or you might catch yourself talking out of both sides of your mouth.

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On Labor Day, support for unions plunges to all-time low

By: Byron York
Chief Political Correspondent
09/07/09 8:42 AM EDT