Leaders of some of the largest unions in the US have unveiled a drive to jumpstart the country’s ailing labor movement and combat growing wealth inequality under Donald Trump.
To make it easier for workers to join a union, and strengthen the hand of new unions negotiating with powerful businesses, a string of prominent organizers joined together to launch Union Now, a non-profit designed to increase labor union density.
“This is really about trying to put power in the hands of people,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the largest flight attendants union in the US, and one of the leaders of the push.
She suggested the time had come for workers to start thinking – in some ways – more like the companies that employ them. “There’s 70% of workers who want a union, and 10% have them,” said Nelson. “If it were a company, they would figure out how to get the product into the hands of the 70% who wanted it.”
The architects of Union Now hope it will provide mobilizing workers with financial firepower. “The reality is that even if unions spent all of their money on organizing and all of their efforts on organizing, it wouldn’t be enough,” Nelson said. “They have to also do all the representation of their current members, have contract fights and all the rest.
“This is really about making it possible for working people to get a union, to outweigh the boss, to be able to stand up to bosses who fire workers illegally during organizing drives, to support recognition strikes and to support contract strikes too,” she said. “All in together.”
Union density in the US was more than 30% in the 1950s, but declined precipitously over the ensuing decades. It stood at just 10% in 2025, despite opinion polls indicating vast public approval and support for labor unions.
The number of union members in the US peaked in 1979 at 21 million members, compared with 14.7 million today. Over the same period, the US population has grown by more than 100 million.
“In NYC, as across the country, one of the biggest challenges workers who have already chosen a union has faced is the time it takes to get a first contract,” Julie Su, deputy mayor for economic justice in New York City, and former secretary of labor under the Biden administration, said. “These delays are, in effect, a form of union busting.”
The National Labor Relations Board, the federal watchdog for workers’ rights, has meanwhile taken a starkly different path since Trump’s return to office.
“Employers fail to honor their employees’ decision and their rights, hoping that as long as there is no first contract, workers will start to tire and question the value of being in a union,” said Su. “When you add explicit unfair labor practices to this, and an NLRB hostile to workers, the results are predictable and devastating.”
It can take on average more than 450 days for a first union contract to be reached. While efforts to reform labor law to facilitate union organizing and bargaining have stalled in the US Congress, many employers drag out and delay bargaining for several years after workers vote to form a union.
“To be a real union town, we have to use every lever the city has to combat this, including showing up for workers who are organizing and coming from a position of strength when we contract with, purchase from, and work with companies so our expectations are clear,” said Su. “Over 60 million people across the US say they would join a union if they could, yet we have seen ever-decreasing union density.”
At a rally marking the launch of Union Now on Sunday, Senator Bernie Sanders and the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, issued a rallying cry to workers looking to take on the power of billionaires. Workers involved in some of the most high-profile union organizing efforts in the US over the past several years that have faced staunch employer opposition, including from Amazon, Starbucks, REI, Delta Air Lines and Wells Fargo, also appeared.
Even in cases where workers have successfully unionized, such as at hundreds of Starbucks stores since 2021, employers have dragged out and delayed reaching a first union contract.
“There are more of us than there are them,” Brittany Norris, a Delta Air Lines flight attendant based in New York City who is involved in organizing flight attendants at the airline, told the rally. “Life experience has taught me that we, the employees, are the living, breathing workforce that builds and maintains true community, a community that looks out for one another, protects each other, and provides and protects us when we need it most.”
The organizing effort at Delta Air Lines is the largest currently in the US, aimed at mobilizing 30,000 flight attendants at the last major US airline where flight attendants have yet to unionize. Delta has opposed the effort, while federal labor law mandates the workers must have a majority of union authorization cards signed within 12 months to be able to file for a union election.
Delta affirmed its position against unionization. “Delta’s culture is firmly rooted in taking care of its employees who, over the past two decades, have repeatedly chosen to reject AFA [Association of Flight Attendants] representation,” a spokesperson said.
“Before I worked at Starbucks, I was at Chipotle under then CEO Brian Niccol,” said Mina Leon, a Starbucks worker in New York City, among those still fighting for a first union contract at the world’s largest coffee chain. “We were understaffed, underpaid and overworked. But I remember hearing about this new Starbucks workers union. It felt like every week, more baristas were joining, and it gave me hope that things could be better.
“Now, in 2025 I started working at Starbucks under our CEO, Brian Nichol. Would you believe it? We are understaffed, underpaid and overworked. But now I’m a member of the union I looked up to.”
Starbucks did not respond a request for comment.
Connor Spence, president of the Amazon Labor Union, which represents Amazon workers at JFK8 in Staten Island, New York, said the world’s largest retailer had spent the past four years trying to overturn the results of its victorious union election.
“Every day in this movement, there are workers who are putting it all on the line at great cost to themselves, in defiance of an employer whose main weapon is futility and isolation and despair,” said Spence. “While this fight is far from over, know that we are making progress. None of it would be possible without each other. So when we win, and I believe that we will win, it will be because we fought together.”
Amazon denied allegations of interfering with workers’ right to choose whether or not to join a union. “Amazon employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union,” said spokesperson Eileen Hards. “They always have. The fact is we already provide much of what the Teamsters are requesting including safe and inclusive workplaces, competitive pay, health benefits on day one, and opportunities for career growth.”
