5 Facts About Unions and Older Workers

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.

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“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.