Above photo: Workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Tennessee won union recognition in 2024, but didn’t secure a contract until February 2026. UAW.
Despite aggressive anti-union climates, union membership grew in a number of southern states last year.
We offer three articles on this trend: one on the south generally, one on Virginia and one on Texas.
The share of Southern workers in unions slightly increased in 2025, mirroring a small uptick in unionization nationally, according to government data released in February.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers showed that 14.7 million workers belonged to a union in 2025, an increase of 463,000 from 2024 and the highest number of unionized workers in the U.S. since 2009.
Labor unions added 166,000 workers in 13 Southern states, with Georgia registering by far the biggest gains: 62,000 more Georgia employees belonged to a union in 2025 than in 2024. Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Virginia witnessed small increases, while Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee largely held steady. Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia saw declines.
The following chart shows the share of workers in each state that belong to unions, and those that work at jobs with union representation in 2024 and 2025. Use the scroll bar at the bottom to see the full table.
Southern states continue to lag significantly behind the rest of the country in union membership. Close to 4.9% of workers in the South belong to a union, and 5.9% of workers are employed in a workplace that enjoys union representation. That compares to 12.7% union density in the rest of the country, and 14% of non-Southern workers having union representation at their workplace.
Labor’s modest gains come amidst a wide-ranging assault on worker protections under the Trump administration. Since coming into office, Trump has sought to strip collective bargaining rights for more than 1 million federal workers and eviscerated worker health and safety protections.
The government’s unionization figures understate the full scope of labor activity in several key ways. For one, it only captures workers who have successfully won a union contract. The data doesn’t include, for example, the United Auto Workers’ historic union election in 2024 at Volkswagen’s plant in Tennessee, where 73% of workers voted in support of unionizing. That’s because the union’s contract wasn’t ratified until February of 2026.
Labor unrest in the form of strikes is also at its highest level in more than two decades. Each year from 2023 to 2025, there were 30 or more work stoppages involving 1,000 or more people. In 2025, that included strikes by Starbucks Workers United employees in six Southern states.
Indeed, many workers would join a union if they had the opportunity. Nationally, support for labor has risen over the last 15 years and stayed strong since the beginning of the pandemic. In 2025, Gallup found 68% of the American public saying they approved of unions, matching the support labor enjoyed during its heyday in the 1960s.
As labor historian and advocate Lane Windham notes, research shows that close to half of all workers say they’d be part of a union if given the chance. “People want to be part of unions,” Windham says. “It’s up to unions to figure out how to bring them in.”
Data: VA Has More Union Workers Amid Growing Regional Trend
by Edwin J. Viera, msn.com
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/data-va-has-more-union-workers-amid-g…
New federal data shows more Virginia workers are becoming union members, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimating about 204,000 workers in the state are paying union dues.
The increase marks a rebound in Virginia union membership after a decline earlier in the decade. It also reflects a broader regional trend: Labor unions added 166,000 workers in 13 Southern states in 2025.
Kayla Mock, political and legislative director for the United Food and Commercial Workers union Local 400, said organizing efforts across Virginia have helped boost union membership.
“We have amazing unions organizing all across the state in different industries,” Mock stated. “Our Virginia AFL-CIO, which is the federation that we all belong to, has also been doing some incredible work uplifting that organizing effort.”
Union density remains lower in the South than nationally. About 5% of workers in Southern states belong to a union, compared with a national average of nearly 13%.
The growth comes as an Economic Policy Institute study found U.S. companies are spending $1.5 billion on consultants to keep workers from organizing a union.
Mock acknowledged political support in Richmond has also helped Virginia’s unionization movement. She added labor advocates are continuing to push for more pro-worker legislation in the General Assembly.
“Collective bargaining is huge for workers,” Mock asserted. “We’ve not done it yet, but there is a huge call to repeal right-to-work here in Virginia. But also making sure the legislation we’re getting passed always has a pro-worker position on it.”
Unions and labor rights advocates faced a setback when Gov. Abigail Spanberger vetoed a bill which would have lifted a ban on collective bargaining for public workers.
Spanberger vetoed the legislation after the General Assembly rejected her amendments. She had wanted to delay implementation until 2030, shift authority to a state board and give local governments scheduling flexibility.
Texas Union Membership Reaches 25-Year High
by Texas AFL-CIO, https://texasaflcio.org/easttexas/news/texas-union-membership-reaches-2…
Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its annual report on union density in the country, showing that the number of Texas union members is at the highest it’s been in 25 years.
In 2025, the number of Texas members of unions reached 673,000 — marking a 70,000 member jump from 2024 and continuing a four-year period of growth. Texas also now has the fourth-most union members of any state in the U.S., following California, New York, and Illinois (surpassing New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in 2025).
“The Texas labor movement is steadily growing — all despite Greg Abbott’s anti-worker attacks, broken labor laws, and corporate union busting,” said Texas AFL-CIO President Leonard Aguilar. “We can change our state for the better by investing in and growing our union movement, because as Texas goes, so does the country. Our work to organize Texas workplaces and build worker power is more important than ever before.”
Whether you’re a teacher, firefighter, farm worker, actor, public employee, nurse, construction worker, or any other profession — joining a union is your right. Nothing about Texas’s status as a so-called “right to work” state prevents union organizing, and unions are at historic levels of popularity in polls. The rise in Texas union membership reflects that popularity.
These numbers also reflect the growing influence of labor unions in the state. As state parties try to reconnect with the working class, union endorsements mean more than they ever had before – and union candidates like Texas State Senator-elect Taylor Rehmet carry messaging that uniquely resonates with Texas voters.
Nationwide Impact:
Thanks to years of sustained organizing, 11.2% of all wage and salary workers in the U.S. are now covered under union contracts, up from 2024 and the highest in 16 years.
“Billionaire bosses and union-busting politicians have tried to throw the kitchen sink at working people and their unions—slashing our jobs and rigging the rules to scare us out of organizing— but they are failing,” said AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler. “Working people are experiencing relentless attacks on our freedoms and our livelihoods. These numbers confirm what we’ve seen in the labor movement: Workers have felt President Trump’s billionaire-first agenda in action and are hungry to take back their power. Workers know that the best check on a bad boss is a strong union contract. In 2026, workers will continue to organize in every corner of the country and build power to fight for the lives they deserve.”
“Labor is one of the last institutions in this country that working people actually trust,” added Shuler. “Nearly 70% of Americans support unions and more than 50 million more workers are eager to join one—but broken labor law still has the deck stacked against them. Too many face vicious union-busting and retaliation for organizing and punishing lay-offs even as corporate bosses rake in profits. When Trump shut down the National Labor Relations Board from functioning by denying it a quorum, workers were forced to wait—beyond their own bosses’ delaying tactics—for their elections to be certified and legal justice to be served.”
The new report shows undeniable energy across the country:
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Years of organizing in new industries, workplaces, and in “right to work” states in the South have pushed nationwide union density to 10%.
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Nearly half of all union growth came from Southern states, with younger workers organizing at a rapid pace.
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The number of public sector workers represented by a union grew by 236,000, up to 36.4% of that workforce.
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Despite the biggest act of union-busting in history, union density among federal workers grew to over 31%—the largest single-year increase since 2011—as workers responded to DOGE-driven attacks aimed at stripping away collective bargaining rights and driving experts out of their jobs.
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Private sector union representation grew to add 227,000 workers, with significant gains in health care, retail, education services and construction.
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Workers are looking to the labor movement for solutions as artificial intelligence (AI) threatens their jobs and basic rights. Already, the White House is barreling ahead with its billionaire-first “AI Action Plan” and empowering CEOs to use AI as an excuse to slash payrolls, with 7% of planned job cuts attributed to the new technology.
“Politicians face a clear mandate to stand up to union-busting bosses, whether they are in the corner office or the oval office,” Shuler said. “We call on Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, and to reverse the single largest act of union-busting in American history by passing the Protect America’s Workforce Act in the Senate.”
Polling shows support for labor unions:
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AFL-CIO National Worker Survey (Aug. 2025)
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55% of workers trust labor unions, vs. 36% Democratic Party and 35% Republican Party
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Gallup: Americans’ Approval of Labor Unions (Aug. 2025)
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68% of Americans approve of labor unions
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88% of voters under 30 approve of labor unions
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Resources:
The BLS data on union membership are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of about 60,000 eligible households that obtains information on employment and unemployment among the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population age 16 and over.
Annual estimates for 2025 are 11-month averages that exclude October. Data for October 2025 were not collected due to the federal government shutdown.
