5 Facts About Unions and Older Workers

Twice as many people went on strike in 2023 than last year

Kenneth Terrell,

AARP

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En español

Published October 12, 2023

a person holding a sign that says on strike

UAW members attend a rally in support of the labor union strike at the UAW Local 551 hall in Chicago.

Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

From health care to Hollywood, 2023 has been the year of the strike. Despite declining membership over the years, unions are flexing their willingness to take to the streets to pursue contracts, benefits and working conditions they prefer for their members.

There have been at least 318 strikes this year that involved more than 459,500 workers, according to research from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR). Among the high-profile strikes in 2023 are the United Auto Workers strike against the three major car manufacturers, the dual strikes from the unions representing writers and actors that halted work on new TV shows and movies, and the three-day strike 75,000 health care workers organized against Kaiser Permanente.

“I think that a main reason there are so many strikes this year is that many of the unionized workers on strike are negotiating their first contract since the beginning of the pandemic,” says John Kallas, project director of the ILR Labor Action Tracker. “While many of the issues that workers are striking over certainly existed before 2020, they have been exacerbated by the pandemic and other economic impacts.”

Many of the workers who have taken action are older adults. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), people 45 and older accounted for 37.8 percent of all union membership in 2022.

Here are five quick facts about unions and older workers.

1. The number of striking workers has soared this year.

According to ILR data, in 2023, twice as many people have gone on strike than did last year. As of October, more than 459,500 workers have been part of a labor stoppage this year with two months left to go. There were 224,000 strike participants in 2022 and 141,000 people in 2021.

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2. The number of union members has been declining.

In 1983, the first year for which the BLS has comparable data, there were 17.7 million union workers, which meant that 20.1 percent of all workers then were in a union. In 2022, there were 14.3 million workers. Because the overall number of people has grown significantly since 1983, that means only 10.1 percent of workers last year were in a union, the lowest share on record.

3. Older workers are the largest share of union members.

People 45 and older made up the largest part of union membership in 2022. Workers 45-54 accounted for 14.1 percent of union members, ages 55-64 were 13.4 percent, and 65 and older were 10.3 percent.

4. Local government typically employs the highest share of union members.

Teachers, police officers and firefighters are professions in which unions are common, and those workers typically are paid for by local government. That means that 38.8 percent of people employed by city government are union members, according to 2022 BLS data. Among state government employees, 29.9 percent were members of unions, and 24.4 percent of federal workers were in a union.

5. Most workers are concerned about the decline in union membership.

According to a survey about unions the Pew Research Center conducted in April, 61 percent of respondents said the long-term decline in the share of workers represented by unions is bad for working people. Similarly, 58 percent said that unions’ membership loss is bad for the country.

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Kenneth Terrell covers employment, age discrimination, work and jobs, careers, and the federal government for AARP. He previously worked for the Education Writers Association and U.S. News & World Report, where he reported on government and politics, business, education, science and technology, and lifestyle news.