Republican politicians, Republican billionaires, and big corporations have been attacking unions for decades. Plenty of adults have spent their entire lives hearing well-funded smears, and it has worked over those decades—but it isn’t working so well right now.
Gallup has been polling approval of unions since 1936, and from that year until 1967, unions were overwhelmingly popular, averaging 68% approval. Since that time, though, “approval has been 10 points lower on average, and has only occasionally surpassed 60%.” But occasionally is now.
According to Gallup’s latest poll on the issue, 64% of Americans approve of unions. That’s the fourth-highest number in 50 years.
Gallup cautions that approval of unions tends to drop when the economy is bad—the big-money campaign against unions has done a good job of convincing people to blame workers for the sins of giant businesses and Republican lawmakers—so this number may drop if the economy takes a dive. But it’s still something to celebrate, showing us that pro-worker movements have gained ground in recent years and that the raw material for a real turnaround in the politics of the U.S. economy does exist.