Portside

California labor unions held their ground on membership last year, representing about one in six workers across the state, even as the ranks of organized workers continued to decline in the nation as a whole, according to a new report from two University of California labor centers. Labor organizations in the Golden State likely have seen greater stability because of the pro-union political leadership here and the creativity and energy of organizers, said Toby Higbie, director of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

However, this year’s report, “State of the Unions: California Labor in 2024” , arrives in the shadow of escalating federal immigration enforcement and a GOP attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of federal workers of their union memberships. These developments could reshape the state’s workforce and its economy in ways not seen since the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic, making it crucial to weigh data that may not be available by the end of this year, Higbie said. The report found that more than 2.67 million Californians were represented by unions, the largest absolute number in the country, and 89% of them paid union dues and actively participated in collective decision-making in 2024. Union density has hovered between 16% and 18% for two decades.

Workers are dealing with a cost-of-living crisis and high cost of housing, health care and now increasingly food,” said Higbie, a labor historian. “So they’re turning to unions as a way to get more from their paychecks, knowing that corporations have been doing pretty well in the last decade or so, and can probably manage to share some of that wealth.” Union members in the state are more likely than non-union workers to have higher wages, stronger workplace protections and greater civic engagement, Higbie said, describing it as a kind of “trickle-up economic vitality.”

“When people have extra money in their pockets, they spend it,” he said. “That consumption benefits local businesses and communities. It’s not just about profit margins — it’s about people being able to participate in Little League, churches, neighborhood groups. That’s what makes economies vibrant.” Interest in unions is on the rise The report underscores that when given the chance, California workers overwhelmingly want unions. More than 83% of workers who voted in union elections in 2024 chose representation, a higher rate than the national average. “There’s no doubt that younger people are strongly union-curious right now,” Higbie said. “I’ve really seen in the last 10 years (that) students just increasingly are more interested and curious about unions, wanting to get involved in unions, even starting to do organizing drives in their workplaces on campus.” Labor organizers have been dogged and imaginative as they have pushed into new workplaces, Higbie said, pointing to Starbucks as one example. At that company, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union called Workers United has added one coffeehouse at a time by identifying and educating baristas who want living wages, greater respect from their employer, fair scheduling and sufficient staffing.

Those baristas then confer with their peers, listen to their concerns and explain how they can collectively organize to demand change. That approach worked at the Starbucks in downtown Davis. On Wednesday, it became the 59th California store to join Starbucks Workers United, even though, the Seattle-based company closed a downtown Sacramento store where workers had organized. “A leap of faith like this can be scary, but we feel so much pride and can’t wait to see what we accomplish,” said Brooke Allen, a barista of four years. Such organizing drives remain rare in California’s private sector, where only 9% of workers are unionized compared with more than half of public employees. Many industries with some of the state’s fastest-growing jobs — tech, retail, logistics — remain largely untouched by organized labor.

Deportations hit California’s labor market Higbie said labor researchers already are looking to quantify how mass deportations this year by the Trump administration are affecting the labor market and, by extension, the California economy. He pointed to a UC Merced Labor and Community Center study which found that escalated immigration enforcement caused the state’s private sector employment to fall by nearly 5% between May 2025 and July 2025 — steeper than declines during the first year of the Great Recession.

Many Californians lost their homes and businesses during that 2007-2009 downturn. Yet this year’s two-month decline came faster and harder, Strikingly, more citizens lost jobs (414,832) than noncitizens (327,659), hitting not only Latinos but also whites, Blacks and Asians. “The folks who are advocating mass deportation are dangling the idea that it’s going to help citizens get jobs,” Higbie said. “But at least according to this study, that doesn’t appear to be panning out in the Central Valley. In other words, the implication is that the deportation is subduing the overall economy, and people are leaving the labor force because of it.”

The uncertain road ahead As the state contends with soaring housing and health care costs, workplace automation, and now the destabilizing effects of mass deportations, labor leaders face an uphill battle. Yet, Higbie sees opportunity. Unions grow by organizing, by finding leaders among workers, he said, but they also can grow when states like California create frameworks — like fast-food sectoral bargaining — that give workers more stability and leverage. “The shape of unions will change, as it always has,” he said. “We may see more tenant unions, worker centers, or other forms of collective action that don’t look like traditional unions but serve the same purpose—workers acting together to protect their interests.”

The IRLE and Berkeley report argues that California’s unions remain essential not just for worker power, but for maintaining the state’s economic vitality amid political and demographic turbulence. Higbie noted that as federal protections weaken, state-level labor policy will only grow in importance.

Deportations and California’s workforce California unions must find a way to maintain their numbers while operating in uncharted territory. A study by the UC Merced Community and Labor Center shows the effect that immigration raids are having on California’s private sector employment.

Private sector job loss: California lost nearly 742,500 private-sector jobs between May and July — a 4.9% decline.

How those job losses looked for citizen versus noncitizens: Citizens: -414,832 jobs (-3.3%) Noncitizens: -327,659 jobs (-12.3%).

Here’s the impact of the job losses by race or ethnicity: Latinos: -519,821 jobs (-8.0%) Whites: -166,798 jobs (-3.4%) Asians: -145,421 jobs (-5.2%) Black workers: -37,520 jobs (-5.6%)

Comparison: The two-month drop is steeper than the first year of the Great Recession (-2.9% in California) when hundreds of thousands of California residents lost their homes, and it’s second only to early COVID-19 shutdowns.

Ripple effect: Despite promises that deportations would open jobs for citizens, the study found citizen employment also fell sharply, indicating a broader economic slowdown.