The Department of Labor (DOL) reported that in 2021, 10.3% of the nation’s workforce, about 14 million workers, was unionized. This number drops to 6.1% for 2021. These are the lowest percentages since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935, which governs relations between unions and employers. It is enforced by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board), a federal agency directed by a five-member board appointed by the president.
At their highpoint in the 1950s, unions represented about one-third of all workers. Union membership has steadily declined since that time, with the numbers dropping off in earnest beginning in the early 1980s. Unions have been unsuccessful in organizing even a single facility of either of the world’s two largest retailers, Wal-Mart and Amazon, despite years of effort [Editor's note: Amazon's first union, the Amazon Labor Union, was formed on April 1]. Unions have also, in recent years, lost high-profile campaigns to organize a large Boeing aircraft assembly plant in South Carolina and at Volkswagen and Nissan plants in Tennessee.