Yesterday Dr. Greg Cumpton provided his input to Will Dupree at KXAN on the growing labor movement and unionization in the Central Texas region in response to Ascension Seton nurses voting to unionize. He notes in his follow-up LinkedIn post:
“With high demands from employers, a tight labor market, and inflation eating away at American’s pocket books, employees are hoping to use collective power to increase access to better benefits and pay. Historically positive attitudes from workers around unions have recently increased. According to Gallup, 71% of Americans view unions favorably, the highest measure since 1965.*
With a particularly tight labor market, employers have been offering signing bonuses, higher salaries, and generous benefits to draw new employees. But sometimes existing workers do not receive these same incentives. Unionizing and speaking collectively is one way existing employees might work with employers to seek similar supports. From October 2021 through March of 2022, union representation petitions filed at the National Labor Relations Board have increased 57%.
*Interesting fact, the only year since tracking began that approval dipped below 50% was in 2009.”
The Better Employment and Training Strategies Task Force, or BETS, is a group of more than 40 workforce experts formed in November 2020 by Prof. Stephen Crawford of the 
