What You Can Do

You do not need a union to be protected

The phrase "other concerted activities" covers two or more employees acting together about pay, hours or working conditions, whether or not a union exists or is ever formed.

Discussing your wages with a colleague is protected concerted activity. An employer policy forbidding employees from discussing pay with each other is generally unlawful under the NLRA.

Coverage is not universal. The NLRA excludes agricultural workers, domestic workers, independent contractors and supervisors. Public-sector workers are covered by separate federal or state laws instead.

How a union is actually formed

Workers file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency, supported by signatures from at least 30% of the proposed bargaining unit. The NLRB then conducts a secret-ballot election. A simple majority of votes cast wins.

In FY2025, 2,100 election petitions were filed. Unions won 81.9% of representation elections. Win rates first passed 70% in 2023 for the first time in fifteen years; before the 2010s they averaged under 60%.

The measured difference in pay

In 2025, full-time union members had median usual weekly earnings of $1,404. Non-union workers had $1,174, or 84% of union member earnings.

A difference of $230 per week, or roughly $11,960 a year at the median. BLS notes the comparison does not control for occupation, industry, firm size or region.

Over the same period the private-sector union membership rate fell 10.9 percentage points between 1983 and 2024.

Public opinion, including the part that complicates the story

68% of US adults approve of labor unions, the fifth straight year in the 67–71% range, a level last seen in the early 1960s. The record high was 75% in 1953; the low was 48% in 2009.

The party split, published in full: 90% of Democrats, 69% of independents and 41% of Republicans approve. Approval is higher among younger adults: 72% of those aged 18–34 against 64% of those 55 and over.

Gallup is a non-partisan polling organization. The full breakdown is shown here rather than the single headline number, because the headline alone would misrepresent it.

Where the power exists

26 states allow statewide citizen-initiated ballot measures, where a petition signed by a minimum number of registered voters puts a measure to a public vote. 24 states do not.

21 states allow initiated statutes, 18 allow initiated constitutional amendments, and 15 allow both. 23 states allow citizens to initiate a veto referendum on a law the legislature has already passed.

The federal minimum wage has not moved. State floors have.

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 24 July 2009. In that time, 30 states and the District of Columbia established a higher floor, many of them through citizen ballot measures rather than legislation.

In November 2024, voters in Alaska and Missouri approved increases toward $15 an hour by direct ballot measure. Where federal and state minimum wage law both apply, a worker is entitled to the higher of the two rates.

Paid sick leave, 2024

On the same day in November 2024, voters in three states approved mandatory paid sick leave by ballot measure: Alaska (57%), Missouri (58%) and Nebraska (74%).

Each measure lets employees accrue an hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to 40 or 56 hours a year depending on employer size. The three states joined 18 states and DC with state-mandated paid leave.

Medicaid expansion, seven states

Where state legislatures declined to expand Medicaid, voters did it directly: Maine (2017), Idaho, Nebraska and Utah (2018), Missouri and Oklahoma (2020), and South Dakota (2022).

Missouri, Oklahoma and South Dakota did it by amending their state constitutions, which is harder for a legislature to undo.

Policy votes do not track party votes

Several of the measures above passed in states that, in the same election, voted for statewide and presidential candidates from the opposite party to the one usually associated with those policies. Nebraska's paid sick leave measure passed with 74%.

This is a documented feature of direct democracy rather than an argument: a ballot measure asks about one written policy, so it is voted on separately from the party contest at the top of the ballot. This site takes no position on any of these measures and lists them only because the outcomes are a matter of public record.