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Commentary By Allison Schrager

The Future of Unions Looks Very Different

Economics Labor, Unions

They should be less about collective bargaining and more like guilds that offer various kinds of insurance — for health, retirement and even wages.

The labor movement is having a moment. In a tight employment market, there is money to be had — or profits to be more generously shared — and workers have gotten some big wins recently. Even reality TV stars and NFL running backs are getting into it.

But this is not a revival of unions. In fact, unless they reform, it could be their last gasp. Yes, there have been more union drives and some undeniable successes. There is public support for a possible UAW strike this week and for unions in general. If you ask working Americans, however, most of them — about two-thirds of them, according to a 2022 Gallup poll — don’t want to actually be in a union. That helps explain why many union drives fail.

Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion (paywall)

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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.

Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images