Allison Schrager, Columnist

The Future of Unions Looks Very Different

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

September 14, 2023 at 11:30 AM UTC

By Allison Schrager

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is author of “An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk.”

Having a moment.
Photographer: Mark Makela/Getty Images North America

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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.