Lauded by President Joe Biden and bolstered by recent triumphs at Starbucks, the US labor movement has had reasons to cheer as attention focuses on upcoming unionization votes at Amazon.
But those bright spots do not change an overall picture that is no better than mixed in an economy that has seen unions' share of the American workforce steadily diminish in recent decades.
The US president has also shown clear favoritism for unionized companies, most notably in the automobile industry, where Biden has repeatedly highlighted electric car investments by General Motors and Ford, while essentially snubbing Tesla, where employees are not represented by the United Auto Workers.
But the rate of unionization in the private sector fell again in 2021, all the way down to 6.1 percent. The Starbucks campaign was led mostly by younger and college-educated workers who are broadly reflective of the current wave of newer labor supporters.But beyond those sectors, labor unions have struggled to gain a foothold, particularly in southern and some western states, whose percentage of unionized workers are less than one-third or one-fourth of those in California and New York.