As the triple-threat of AI-fueled unemployment, rampant inflation, and further erosion of workers’ rights take their toll, US workers are throwing their support behind a long-neglected institution: labor unions.
According to a new survey by polling firm Gallup, a full 47 percent of Americans now say they want unions to have more influence than they do today. That’s up from 43 percent in 2023 and a dismal 25 percent in 2009 — setting, per Gallup, a new record for the 21st century.
At the same time, the percentage of Americans harboring anti-labor sentiment — those who want unions to have even “less influence” than they do today — have also set a record for the new millennium, reaching just 23 percent. Even that share is shrinking, though: it’s down from 26 percent in 2023, and is nearly half the record 21st century highs of 42 percent, set in 2009.
What’s more, overall “approval” of labor unions has reached a whopping 71 percent, on par with Gallup’s polling from May of 1965, a period marked by an unrecognizably strong fervor for labor protections — but also the beginning of the long decline of organized labor in the US.
Yet despite similar pro-labor attitudes, the differences between 1965 and 2026 could not be more pronounced. At that point some 60 years ago, nearly one in three Americans belonged to a union, compared to just one in ten in 2025. According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the volume of work stoppages grew steadily throughout the 1960s, with the average duration of all worker-led shutdowns peaking at a whopping 25 days in 1965.
But union militancy didn’t become what it was through popular sentiment alone. It took decades of organizing and hard-won concessions in the face of rising industrialization, a cause for which many everyday workers selflessly dedicated their lives with no guarantee of success. Sure enough, the decades following the 1960s were characterized by a major drop-off in union power, as both union activity and popular support began to wane.
Now, years of de-industrialization — economic policy now culminating in the rising threat of AI automation — have forced workers onto their heels, as once-ardent labor groups capitulate to pro-business forces. But it doesn’t have to remain this way. If the broad collective of US workers can tap into the long-forgotten legacy of the 20th century labor movement, it could mean the revival of union militancy, and for some, possibly one last chance to carve out protections against an automated future through workplace organizing.
More on automation: Korean Workers Vote to Go On Strike, Fearing Robots Could Replace Them
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