Recommended Actions

Union leaders have designated seats on local workforce development boards and should be key partners in the development of your job quality strategy. Practical ways to engage local labor leaders in your job quality include:

• Reviewing your local labor council’s policy platform and identifying common goals

• Setting a standing agenda item for union leaders to speak on organized labor priorities at board meetings

• Meeting with union leaders to get input on your draft framework, standards and goals

Localities that want to lead by example can enable or facilitate collective bargaining and unionizing among their municipal workforce. Public employee unions can be stable bargaining partners to local governments, promote labor peace and ensure the delivery of high-quality services. In addition, unions reduce inequality as well as race and gender disparities and boost democratic participation.

Whether or not local government workers can form and join unions varies by state and by the type of municipal worker. Many state statutes expressly authorize collective bargaining by teachers, police officers and firefighters. In some states, local governments are permitted to collectively bargain with all municipal workers, while other states explicitly prohibit local governments from doing so.

In 2020, Virginia’s state legislature passed a law lifting a previous ban on union organizing by municipal workers and allowing localities to recognize and collectively bargain with unions. A number of Virginia localities have since passed collective bargaining ordinances, including the city of Alexandria, Arlington County, Fairfax County, Loudoun County and the Richmond School Board.

Consider setting and tracking key performance indicators related to placements in union jobs, including:

• Number of placements in union jobs

• Percentage of placements in union jobs or other jobs covered by a union or employee association contract

• Whether your percentage of placements in union jobs is above or below local union membership benchmarks

• Retention rates

All data should be disaggregated by race, gender and other demographics to better understand occupational segregation and ensure that all participants have equal opportunities. To track these outcomes, you may need to add a field in your system of record for the individual's case manager and/or business services representative to indicate whether or not the position is represented by a union. 

Worker Empowerment Network (National): In 2022, the US Workers’ Organizing Efforts and Collective Actions report, a landscape study on worker organizing, found an increase in public support, organizing activity and several new ways workers are mobilizing. According to the researchers, “the increasing level and varieties of worker activism tell us that American workers want a greater voice at work and are taking actions to assert their interests, sometimes in ways that bear little resemblance to the forms of organizing and collective bargaining provided under legacy labor laws.”

Nationally, union members account for 10% of employed wage and salary workers and 33.9% of public sector workers. The US Department of Labor reported an uptick in petitions for formal union representation in 2022. Refer to  Bureau of Labor Statistics data to understand where your state and/or county stacks up against national averages. Take these data to discussions with local labor leaders and encourage dialogue on what challenges and opportunities they are seeing related to union membership. Consider publishing an annual organized labor index that includes the latest annual union membership rates for your area compared to national and state averages; opportunities for workers to learn more about unions by industry sector; quotes from local labor leaders and union workers providing insights and analysis on the data and other opportunities, events, or key happenings related to organized labor in your community.

Fund pre-apprenticeships with demonstrated referral relationships (e.g., memoranda of understanding) to joint labor-management registered apprenticeship programs in health care, construction, manufacturing and other key industries in your community.

California’s High Road Construction Careers project has allocated more than $20,000,000 since 2014 to labor union and workforce development board partnerships to diversify and expand building and construction trade union membership through union approved pre-apprenticeships that use the Multi-Core Craft Curriculum (MC3). A statewide database of the pre-apprenticeships can be found here.

The initiative is funded by ongoing revenue through California Senate Bill 1: The Road Repair and Accountability Act, the Clean Energy Jobs Act Program and carbon market cap and trade revenues administered by the California Air Resources Board. Funds have been used to fund local partnerships among workforce boards, unions, community colleges and other partners in East San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles and Orange County and the Central Valley.

There are six primary federal funding streams that can support the creation and expansion of union registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs). For example, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Title I funds can be used to support union registered apprenticeship programs through:

• Incumbent worker training (to pay for training/instruction of current apprentices)

• Customized training (for eligible instruction costs)

• On-the-job training contracts (to pay for employer’s extraordinary costs of training)

• Individual training accounts (to pay for training/instruction of new apprentices).

The Maricopa County (AZ) workforce development board partners with building and construction trade RAPS, including the Phoenix Painters and Allied Trades, the Southwest Carpenters Training Fund and the Laborers Training School. The workforce board provides $4,000 through Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) adult funds for related instruction and provides case management and supportive services to apprentices, generally in the first year of the apprenticeship program. According to a US Department of Labor case study, based on WIOA program data from July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020, WIOA adult programapprenticeship participants had a 94% employment rate during the second quarter after program exit, 22 points higher than the statewide rate for the WIOA adult program.

Incorporate workshop curriculum in core (or group) services at the American Job Centers that includes information, history, and ways to connect to local organized labor unions. Union representatives can present on curriculum like this example from a local Building and Construction Trades Council to help jobseekers navigate organized labor timelines, apprenticeship applications and entrance exam criteria.

Workforce boards and economic development agencies can partner with local elected leaders, labor unions and other stakeholders to play a role in project labor agreements (PLAs) for public works projects. There is particular opportunity to engage as the bi-partisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and an Executive Order from President Biden in February of 2022 to expand PLAs for federally funded projects.

In Long Beach (CA), Pacific Gateway is the local workforce development board and is a partner in the development and implementation of project labor agreements with local unions to advance and fill project labor agreements for public works projects. The local workforce board helps meet local hire requirements and refers qualified diverse applicants to the Los Angeles and Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council and affiliated craft councils and unions through its pre-apprenticeship program.

Track how your partnership with unions increases union participation in your area. Make sure to disaggregate data and dig in on trends by race, gender and related demographics.

Here are some metrics to get you started:

• Percentage of placements in union jobs

• Percentage of placements in union jobs or other jobs covered by a union or employee association contract

• Whether your percentage of placements in union jobs is above or below local union membership benchmarks

• Retention and wage of union placements compared to non-union placements in your system at 3, 6, and 12 months after program exit