Unions ‘Wait and See’ on Elections as Trump Upends Labor Arena

A significant drop in union elections and petitions to the National Labor Relations Board in the first six months of President Donald Trump’s second term shows that organized labor is wary of risking disputes that could lead to unfavorable rulings with broader implications.

Attorneys and labor academics say new NLRB data reveal a “wait and see” moment, as organized labor and the nation’s workers assess how Trump will treat new unions. The board has been undergoing pivotal changes, beginning with the firing of Biden’s general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox.

“Republican administrations are generally not as accommodating to labor’s interests as Democratic ones,” said Joshua Nadreau, a regional managing partner at Fisher Phillips. “So if you’re on the fence about something or if there’s an issue of law that might be unique in your petition, you don’t want to give the board an avenue to change the law in a way that doesn’t help the movement.”

That political uncertainty, coupled with a volatile economy and labor market, could have workers second-guessing whether they’re ready to stick their necks out for collective action, the data show. College athlete employment, protections for political protests, and higher penalties for labor law violations are just some of the issues that worker advocates may want to steer away from a Republican board.

The average number of newly certified unions per month dropped 22.3% between January and July this year, compared to the last six months of the Biden administration, according to data from the NLRB’s monthly election reports. There has also been a 15.8% drop in the number of representation petitions filed in the first half of fiscal year 2025 compared to the same period last fiscal year.

Post Labor Boom

This year’s organizing slump stands in stark contrast to the previous three years, where the NLRB saw historic numbers of representation petitions, union elections, and unfair labor practice charges filed each year.

Some organizing efforts that hinged on a progressive interpretation of labor law were cut short, even before Trump took office. Student athletes, for example, dropped bids to unionize with the Service Employees International Union at Dartmouth College and gain employee recognition at the University of Southern California.

The NLRB now sits without a quorum after Trump fired Wilcox in late January. While many of its duties still continue at the regional level, the agency can’t issue binding decisions in ULP cases or disputes over an election.

University of Cincinnati law professor Anne Lofaso said many unions and organizers were emboldened by the expanded vision of labor law under Abruzzo and the Democratic-majority board.

Abruzzo had pushed the board to impose monetary remedies against employers who refuse to bargain, categorize political protests as protected activity under labor law, and clamp down on restrictive covenants like non-compete agreements.

While the board didn’t always agree with her view of the law, they still agreed with her to overturn decades of precedent on issues like captive audience meetings, card-check union recognition, and potentially-coercive employer statements.

Unions now might be wary of presenting new legal theories or organizing units seen as risky because they’re worried about providing the Trump NLRB with vehicles to overturn precedent, said Lofaso.

“If you stop everything now then you’re risking the momentum of the labor movement, but if you allow things to move at the same pace as before, then you risk bad board precedents or things going to the Supreme Court,” she said.

Unions may have anticipated employers challenging the certification of election results and using the lack of board quorum to their advantage to lengthen certification proceedings, said Meredith Kirshenbaum, an employer-side attorney for Goldberg Kohn Ltd. But organizing activity could pick back up in the coming months, she said.

Public Sector Effects

While organized labor hasn’t been as active in the private sector, disputes involving federal-sector workers have skyrocketed.

Trump signed executive orders to exclude two-thirds of the federal workforce from collective bargaining rights—subtracting millions of dollars in dues from unions representing those workers—and demanded a widespread restructuring of the government that could force layoffs and resignations of tens of thousands of workers.

Organized labor has gone to court over the terminations, workers’ collective bargaining rights, and initiatives that shutter agencies. While some of the biggest unions in the fight exclusively represent public-sector workers, many are a blend of public and private members.

Unions like the Service Employees International Union and the American Geophysical Union signed on to a lawsuit headed by the American Federation of Government Employees to allege that Trump’s reduction-in-force plans amount to an unlawful reorganization of the federal government.

The American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors, meanwhile, sued when Trump withheld millions in funding for Columbia University and eliminated income-driven student loan repayment programs.

“A lot of the labor movement has been on the defensive,” said Todd Vachon, a labor professor at Rutgers University. “There’s a lot of energy being put into saving the federal workforce instead of into new organizing drives and bringing in new workers.”

A New Era

The Biden-era union activity was also driven by the economic and political environment during the Covid-19 pandemic, labor observers said. Millions of workers were laid off or resigned, and millions more faced the prospect of going to work with a deadly disease on the rise.

Organizing campaigns like those at Starbucks Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. were fueled by concerns around workplace safety and Covid-era economics.

Unions also saw a new generation of organizers joining them, bringing new energy to the movement.

“Workers felt like their workplaces were unsafe and the labor market was tight, so they knew that if they got fired because of their collective action, there would be other jobs for them,” Vachon said.

“Now, we’re facing a lot of economic uncertainty. Skilled, talented people are losing their jobs and aren’t able to find another one because employers are unsure what the regulatory landscape is going to look like,” he said.