We’ve been told that 2024 was the year that union bosses flexed their muscle – especially with their pal Lunch Bucket Joe in the White House. The pro-union forces tout a United Auto Workers organizing victory at a Tennessee plant and some Starbucks baristas unionizing.

However, new data show that the percentage of workers who belong to unions in the U.S. hit a record low of 9.9% in 2024. By comparison, in 1983, during the Reagan years, it was 1 in 5.

However, the even bigger story in union membership is that private-sector unions are disappearing. In the 1950s, nearly all of the union members were private-sector workers.

Today, private-sector union membership has tumbled to only 5.9% of the workforce. ALL the remaining union power is in the government worker unions. Today 32% of public sector workers are in unions, with a majority of them in the NEA and the AFT (the two major teacher unions). The salary and benefit packages of government workers far outstrip those in the private sector.

Why are more and more blue-collar workers spurning unions? One answer is that the union bosses don’t represent the interests of their members anymore. Trump won 47% of union household votes in 2024, but the union bosses gave 90% of union donations to Democrats – despite the fact that Biden’s anti-fossil fuels crusade destroyed hundreds of thousands of blue-collar union jobs.