Unionizing Young Workers: America’s Labor Uptick and Youth Outreach Strategies

Scholars and practitioners agree that organized labor’s difficulty recruiting young people constitutes one of the central obstacles to union growth and revitalization. What mechanisms can overcome this impasse? This article tests competing theories of union youth outreach in light of the 2021–2024 labor union uptick in the United States. Through a survey reaching out to every union drive of 2022 and through hundreds of worker interviews, the author demonstrates that young workers have driven the US unionization surge and identifies the labor initiatives that have enabled this exceptional degree of involvement. Many theorized mechanisms for connecting with young workers proved to be either absent or relatively unimportant, such as youth sections, youth marketing, alliances with social movements, coalitions, and social justice demands. By contrast, five mutually reinforcing mechanisms were central: organizing youth-heavy industries; adopting a bottom-up organizing model; forging a “militant minority” of workplace radicals; leaning on digital tools; and spreading contagious worker self-activity.