Unionizing in the Chambers of Government

As overall union membership stagnates nationwide due to the contraction of traditionally unionized industries, labor organizations have made historic inroads into new, highly volatile employment sectors, including digital media, tech, political campaigns, and the gig economy. One such sector that has seen new life is state and local legislative employees. Excluded from coverage by the National Labor Relations Act, legislative employees have been subject to disparate labor rights, job protections, and terms and conditions of employment across and within states. While efforts to secure collective bargaining rights for this sector have occurred over the past twenty-five years, the simultaneous yet uncoordinated unionization efforts since August 2019 of staff in six seven states and Congress have brought new national attention to the issue. As member-organizers seek to build a nationwide movement of legislative employee bargaining, this essay considers the lessons of existing and past legislative, judicial, and organizing efforts. Each organizing attempt offers a unique response to a distinct set of laws, actors, and geography; while some of those choices may be replicable elsewhere, more likely any future campaigns will need to be bespoke. As we enter the third year of a pandemic that continues to destabilize traditional workplaces, additional efforts, drawing inspiration and lessons from existing units, will continue to appear and contribute in yet another unique manner to this still emergent area of public sector organizing