Unions: Power in Numbers
Quality reviewed September 2026
- Grades
- Grades 9-12
- Time
- About two 50-minute class periods
- Includes
- 10 ready-to-teach files
- Format
- Word (.docx) · PowerPoint (.pptx)
- Slide deck
- Guided notes
- Guided notes teacher key
- Activity + answer key
- Quiz + answer key
- Exit ticket + answer key
- Teacher guide
What students do
- Define a labor union and explain how collective bargaining gives workers more leverage than negotiating alone
- Trace U.S. union membership from the 1955 peak of 33 percent down to 9.9 percent today using a line chart
- Compare union density by state, reading Hawaii's 26.5 percent against North Carolina's 2.4 percent off a bar chart
- Evaluate three recent organizing drives, Starbucks Workers United, the Amazon Labor Union, and the UAW Stand-Up Strike, and argue both sides of the union debate
What it covers
- Why union density fell from about a third of workers in 1955 to under 10 percent today
- Three current organizing stories, Starbucks, Amazon's JFK8 warehouse, and the 2023 UAW Stand-Up Strike
- Both sides of the pros-and-cons debate over unions, argued from the evidence rather than assigned a side
Learning targets
- Define a LABOR UNION and explain how COLLECTIVE BARGAINING gives workers more power in setting wages, benefits, and working conditions than they have individually
- Trace the rise and decline of U.S. union membership from the 1955 peak (~33%) to today (9.9%) using a line chart, and read state-level differences in union density off a bar chart
- Evaluate three recent organizing efforts (Starbucks Workers United, Amazon Labor Union JFK8, the UAW Stand-Up Strike) and present BOTH SIDES of the union pros-and-cons debate
Peek inside
A group of workers organized to bargain TOGETHER with the employer
Negotiates one written CONTRACT covering wages, benefits, hours, safety
Once certified (majority vote), it represents ALL workers in that unit
Federal law: the employer MUST bargain in good faith
Key concept: one worker alone has no legal right to bargain. A union turns one worker's complaint into a contract issue.
The Definition
A labor union is a group of workers organized to bargain with the employer.
The union negotiates one written that covers wages, benefits, hours, and safety.
Once certified by a majority vote, the union represents workers in that unit.
Why It Matters
Federal law requires the employer to bargain in faith.
1. When the baristas at one Starbucks store negotiate as a group with the employer over wages, benefits, hours, and safety - instead of each worker negotiating alone - they are using the process called .
Why this matters
Hawaii's union membership sits at 26.5 percent while North Carolina's sits at 2.4 percent, a single comparison that says more about regional labor law than any definition of collective bargaining. Both sit far below the 33 percent of workers unionized in 1955.
Once students trace that decline from a third of the workforce to under 10 percent today, the argument moves off the abstract chart and onto specific cases. Weighing Starbucks Workers United, the Amazon Labor Union, and the 2023 UAW Stand-Up Strike gives a class that rarely agrees something concrete to argue about.
From one teacher to another
After the history and the chart reading, this lesson ends in an actual debate instead of a lecture, with students arguing both sides of the union question rather than being handed a conclusion. The three organizing stories, Starbucks, the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, and the UAW strike, give the numbers somewhere to land besides a decades-old chart. Most classes are already split on unions before this lesson starts, and I didn't want the activity to flatten that.
Every file in this toolkit
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Activity (Student)
Director Ellis has students read two union density charts, one tracking the national decline since 1955 and one comparing the highest-density state against the lowest. Three drives, Starbucks, the Amazon warehouse vote, and the 2023 UAW strike, get argued from both sides.
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Activity (Answer Key)
Hawaii's membership rate works out to roughly 11 times North Carolina's once the two bar-chart figures are divided here, alongside the 23.3 point drop since the 1955 peak and rulings on all three organizing cases, from the Buffalo store to the 2023 strike.
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Exit Ticket (Student)
Questions name a labor union's main economic role, identify roughly what U.S. union membership fell to by 2024 from its 1955 peak, and explain what a right-to-work law lets a worker do. Both the pro-union and anti-union case get argued before naming one recent organizing drive.
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Exit Ticket (Answer Key)
Bargaining collectively for one contract names a union's main role, roughly 10 percent is the 2024 membership level, and opting out of dues in a unionized workplace is what right-to-work allows. All four terms, both sides of the debate, and one named organizing case need to land in the response.
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Guided Notes (Student)
A union membership line falling from a 33 percent peak in 1955 down near 9.9 today gets charted state by state too, a 26.5 percent high in Hawaii against 2.4 in North Carolina, before students weigh Starbucks, the Amazon Labor Union at JFK8, and the UAW strike. Both sides of the debate get argued.
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Guided Notes (Teacher Key)
The 33 percent 1955 peak against 9.9 percent today, a 26.5 percent high in Hawaii against a 2.4 percent low in North Carolina, and the JFK8 tally of 2,654 YES to 2,131 NO all stand tallied. Collective bargaining, union density, and right-to-work laws carry their answers.
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Quiz (Student)
A density item compares Hawaii's union membership to North Carolina's, and another traces the national membership rate from its 1955 peak toward today's much lower figure.
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Quiz (Answer Key)
The Hawaii-to-North-Carolina union density gap runs roughly 24 percentage points, the 1935 Wagner Act gets credited with creating the right to organize, and the JFK8 win falls on April 1, 2022.
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Slides
Hawaii's 26.5% union density sits against North Carolina's 2.4% on one bar chart, after membership traces from 1955's 33.2% peak down to 9.9% today, then Starbucks, the JFK8 warehouse vote, and the UAW's six-week strike against the Big 3 automakers lead toward the closing takeaways.
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Teacher Guide
A state-research extension has students pull their own state's union density and check its right-to-work status, then trace one local organizing case from the past five years.
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