EPI's Jennifer Sherer on Worker Power, State Labor Law and the NLRA

Jennifer Sherer, deputy director of the Economic Policy Institute's Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN), joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to assess the state of worker power in America at a moment of sharp contrasts. While the federal government has moved aggressively to undermine union rights, a growing number of states are stepping in with innovative legislation to shore up worker protections, ban captive-audience meetings and extend unemployment insurance to striking workers.

Sherer also addressed the National Labor Relations Act's current limitations, the bipartisan House vote to restore collective bargaining rights for federal employees and a significant data point that cuts against the anti-union narrative.

Federal labor law guarantees private-sector workers the right to organize and bargain collectively. However, decades of anti-union amendments, narrowing court decisions and employer-driven union-busting tactics have left the National Labor Relations Act far weaker than it was when it was passed in 1935. Further, the current administration is compounding that erosion by installing agency appointees who are openly hostile to worker rights and attempting to strip collectively bargained contracts from hundreds of thousands of federal employees.

• States are responding with a range of innovative measures, including banning captive audience meetings, eliminating So-Called “Right-to-Work” laws and extending state unemployment insurance to workers on strike or locked out.
• Despite sustained attacks on organized labor, approximately 463,000 workers joined unions in 2025 — with federal employees accounting for a significant portion of that growth.
• Bipartisan legislation to restore federal employee collective bargaining rights passed the House, a signal Sherer said reflects the broad and durable popularity of unions across party lines and regions.

Worker Power Is Growing — Even as the Attacks Intensify

Jennifer Sherer has been in the labor movement for more than 25 years. Her first union was the United Electrical Workers (UE), when she helped build one of the first graduate employee unions to affiliate with UE at the University of Iowa. That experience gave her a firsthand education in what collective bargaining can do for workers and set her on a career path in labor education, working with private- and public-sector unions across Iowa and the Midwest. Today, as deputy director of the Economic Policy Institute's Economic Analysis and Research Network (EARN), she directs the Worker Power Project, supporting a network of more than 60 state and local organizations working to advance pro-worker policy across the country.

The picture she brought to the America's Work Force Union Podcast is one of sharp contrasts: a federal environment growing more hostile toward unions, and a state-level landscape where some of the most meaningful worker protections in decades are being put in place.

What Federal Labor Law Still Says — and What It No Longer Does

The National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, guarantees most private-sector workers the right to form and join labor organizations for mutual aid and protection, without employer interference. It gives workers two paths to union recognition: persuading a majority of co-workers to sign on and requesting voluntary recognition from the employer, or filing for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election if the employer refuses. Once a majority is established, the employer is legally required to bargain in good faith toward a contract.

The gap between what the law says and what workers actually experience, Sherer said, has widened dramatically over the past 9 decades. Anti-union amendments, court decisions that have narrowed protections, the use of union-busting consulting firms and the failure of the U.S. Congress to update the law to reflect the realities of modern workplaces have all contributed to an NLRA that protects workers far less effectively than when it became law.

On top of that weakened foundation, the current administration has moved aggressively to eliminate union contracts covering hundreds of thousands of federal employees. It has also installed appointees at the NLRB and other agencies who are openly hostile to the rights those agencies exist to enforce. Some corporations are now pursuing court cases that could permanently disable the NLRB entirely — cases that, if taken to the Supreme Court, could render the federal labor law framework effectively inoperative.

States Are Filling the Void

In that environment, states are stepping in — and some are doing so in ways that go well beyond the floor of what federal law allows. The most basic step available to states is repealing So-Called “Right to Work” laws, which Sherer described as obstacles layered on top of workers' existing federal rights. States also have clear latitude to extend protections to workers that federal law excludes entirely: public employees, domestic workers and farm workers.

The more innovative interventions are in areas where federal law has been hollowed out through decades of adverse rulings. Chief among them is the captive-audience meeting — the mandatory workplace sessions run by employers using anti-union consultants, where workers are subjected to sustained pressure, implied threats and psychological tactics designed to discourage organizing. Sherer described the practice in stark terms: a psychological reign of terror. Federal board decisions have not only permitted these meetings but, over time, expanded the circumstances under which employers can hold them. Several states are now moving to ban them outright, restoring the intent of the NLRA's anti-coercion provisions at the state level.

States are also making striking and locked-out workers eligible for unemployment insurance — a state-administered program that federal law does not address — removing one of the most powerful financial levers employers use to outlast workers during labor disputes. Virginia, Sherer noted, is moving in a positive direction on worker protections, while Florida has made recertification requirements so burdensome that they function as a new form of union suppression.

A Bipartisan Signal on Federal Employee Unions

The most striking development Sherer discussed is one that goes against the dominant political narrative. Amid sustained efforts by the current administration to strip federal employees of their collectively bargained union contracts, the U.S. House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation to restore federal employee collective bargaining rights. The bill has not yet cleared the Senate. Still, Sherer called the House vote a meaningful signal: lawmakers from both parties, in every region of the country, are recognizing the popularity and necessity of unions even as the White House moves in the opposite direction.

She pushed back firmly on the extremist position, associated with Project 2025, that public sector unions should be abolished and made illegal. That view, she said, is not reflective of where voters are — regardless of party, region or political background. The more likely political direction, in her assessment, is toward more union protection, not less.

463,000 New Union Members

The final data point Sherer and host Ed Ferenc discussed may be the most telling. In the past year, approximately 463,000 workers joined unions in the United States. That number is significant in any year. In a year defined by sustained attacks on organized labor at the federal level, it is remarkable. Sherer said much of that growth came from federal employees who are joining unions not only to protect what they have, but because the attacks themselves have demonstrated why union membership matters.

The labor movement's appeal, she argued, is not diminishing. If anything, the current moment is clarifying it.

More research and analysis from the Economic Policy Institute and the EARN network is available at epi.org.

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