Union petitions surge in Indiana, federal data shows – Indianapolis News | Indiana weather | Indiana Traffic

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – New federal data shows more workers are planning to unionize in Indiana.

The National Labor Relations Board released the statistics after fiscal year 2024, which ended in September. This shows that the number of petitions for union elections has almost tripled in the last three years.

In 2021, the NBRB received 23 petitions, and in 2024 the number increased to 66. This is an increase of approximately 187%.

The data also shows that unfair labor practice complaints in Indiana rose 35% during that period.

This trend extends beyond the Hoosier State, according to the NLRB. National data shows that the number of petitions more than doubled over the same time period.

The Midwest saw the largest increase in applications of any region, according to the agency. Since 2021 they have grown by 138%.

Marquita Walker, interim chair and assistant professor of labor studies at Indiana University, says she expects this trend to continue.

“This is a time when the workforce became really important to workers,” Walker said. “After COVID, the interest of some workers has just spread and become stronger and more intense.”

The increase is likely due to several factors, Walker said.

First, she says the Biden administration has filled several NLRB vacancies. This move made it easier to reduce the backlog of cases.

More important, however, Walker said, is a decision the agency made just over a year ago in a case involving Cemex, a construction company based in Mexico. Workers tried to unionize at the company’s Southern California plants.

In its decision, the agency ruled that companies must respond to union election claims.

“It’s not that employers like to do this,” Walker said. “That’s because the law now says they have to do it. The law was changed just over a year ago to support the certification of union elections.”

Walker expects more workers to try to form unions in the next few years. She attributes this to the impulse caused by many high-profile strikes all over the country.

The professor also adds that several pro-labor rulings spurred by Biden’s admission are contributing to this trend.

But Walker says it’s part of a normal power cycle between unions and private companies. She expects growth to eventually decline.

“It’s a good time to be an organization,” Walker said. “But I suspect that over the next decade, employer efforts… will find ways… to make solutions as boring as Cemex’s.”

Workers at the Indiana Box Company in Greenfield are the latest in the Indianapolis metro area to file to form a union. They presented their petition On October 17, the petition was not included in the numbers of the NBRB.