Unions Filing More Petitions in 2010

The Huffington Post today has a great article on the decline of organizing during President Obama’s era. The only problem is it’s wrong.

Things don’t look nearly as bleak for unions if you look at their most recent union organizing activity. For example, take a look at the chart from LRI Online. Unions actually increased their petition activity in RC cases 38% over one year ago (RC petition levels were exactly the same as 2008).

Even more telling, if you look at the combined RC petitions from December and January, the trend looks even better for unions, with the total number of petitions over the latest two-month period beating each of the prior 3 years by a pretty substantial margin (including a 30% improvement over last year). Take a look at this chart:

NLRB RC Petitions On the Rise

So don’t count unions out just yet. While it is clear (as the Huffington Post article discusses) that unions have certainly turned their focus more to politics and anti-corporate campaigns than traditional grass-roots organizing, they haven’t given up on the traditional methods either. Traditional campaign activity only stands to increase more once organizers believe they have a few more sympathetic ears at the National Labor Relations Board.