As workers across the United States pursue union drives at warehouses, coffee shops, retail chains, airlines, and delivery operations, employers are spending extraordinary sums to oppose those efforts. A new report jointly published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) and LaborLab estimates that U.S. employers spend approximately $1.7 billion every year on consultants and law firms dedicated to preventing unionization, revealing the scale of an industry that has grown alongside decades of declining union membership.
The report estimates that employers spend roughly $442 million annually on union-avoidance consultants alone, while additional expenditures on legal counsel, representation, litigation, and other anti-union services bring the annual total to approximately $1.7 billion. According to the report, these expenditures are intended to prevent workers “from organizing and bargaining for better pay and working conditions.”
The findings arrive at a moment of renewed labor organizing activity. Union approval in the United States remains near historic highs, with Gallup polling showing nearly 70 percent of Americans support labor unions. At the same time, workers at major corporations including Amazon, Starbucks, and Trader Joe’s have pursued organizing campaigns that have attracted national attention. Yet despite increasing public support, union density has continued to lag. The report notes that union membership as a share of the workforce has fallen from 20.3 percent in 1983 to approximately 10 percent today.
Researchers argue that one reason for that disparity is the development of a sophisticated industry devoted to helping employers resist union campaigns. Over several decades, large law firms have built specialized labor practices that focus on union avoidance strategies. The report identifies firms including Littler Mendelson, Morgan Lewis, and Jackson Lewis as prominent participants in campaigns involving workers at Amazon, Starbucks, and Trader Joe’s.
According to the report, these firms provide a range of services designed to influence organizing campaigns. Their work can include advising employers before union elections, assisting management communications directed at employees, helping companies challenge organizing efforts, and delaying negotiations after workers vote to unionize. Researchers argue that these activities have become a standard feature of modern labor relations in many industries.
One of the report’s most striking examples involves Amazon, which researchers found spent more than $26.6 million on union-avoidance consultants during 2025 based on filings with the U.S. Department of Labor. Other companies examined in the report reportedly spent between $400,000 and $2 million on anti-union services.
Amazon defended its use of outside consultants. An Amazon spokesperson stated, “It’s important that our teammates and partners understand the truth, so we’ve continued to work with experts in the field who are able to share objective facts about what it actually means to have an external party take their voice.”
Researchers maintain that even the report’s billion-dollar estimate likely understates the true scale of employer spending. Disclosure requirements governing labor consultants contain exemptions that allow certain activities to go unreported. The report argues that employers frequently classify anti-union work as advice rather than direct persuasion, limiting what must be disclosed publicly. In addition, not all employers comply fully with existing reporting obligations.
“It’s important to note that this estimate doesn’t begin to account for the much greater internal costs that employers incur to prevent and resist unionization, including spending on in-house employee relations specialists, who are charged with keeping employers union-free,” Teke Wiggin, strategic coordinator at LaborLab and a co-author of the report, told Truthout.
Those internal expenditures can include labor relations personnel, human resources departments, management training initiatives, and employee engagement programs specifically intended to discourage union activity. Because many of those costs are not captured in public filings, researchers contend that the actual amount devoted to union avoidance nationwide could be substantially higher than current estimates suggest.
The report places these expenditures within the broader context of workplace power dynamics. Employers already control hiring decisions, work assignments, scheduling, discipline, and compensation. Labor advocates argue that anti-union consultants amplify those existing advantages by providing specialized strategies designed to shape worker perceptions during organizing campaigns.
“There is already a massive power imbalance between workers and employers,” Wiggin said. “Spending billions on anti-union attorneys and consultants who deploy tactics crafted by psychologists to divide and conquer workers and to make unionization feel futile or even dangerous … that further magnifies and exploits this existing power imbalance.”
Researchers also point to legal developments that they argue have weakened labor protections over time. The report states that decades of federal policy changes and court decisions have eroded key provisions of the National Labor Relations Act, the federal law guaranteeing workers the right to organize and bargain collectively. According to the report, union-avoidance law firms have adapted to those changes by identifying and exploiting procedural weaknesses, legal loopholes, and disclosure exemptions that make organizing more difficult.
“Union avoidance law firms have… constructed an industry providing counsel on union busting,” the report states. Researchers further argue that some firms have leveraged reporting loopholes to obscure the extent of their involvement in anti-union campaigns while simultaneously helping employers navigate labor disputes.
Margaret Poydock, senior policy analyst at EPI and co-author of the report, linked the growth of the anti-union consulting industry to the long-term decline in union density across the country.
“This is millions or even billions of dollars that’s not going towards workers and investing into their workplace,” said Poydock.
She also argued that the influence of union-avoidance firms extends beyond organizing campaigns themselves. The report highlights Littler Mendelson’s Workplace Policy Institute, which has participated in debates surrounding labor legislation. According to the report, the institute opposed California’s AB5 legislation aimed at addressing worker misclassification and supported Proposition 22, which preserved the ability of ride-share companies to classify drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.
“These law firms and consultants are essentially exploiting loopholes and weaknesses in our federal labor law and reporting requirements for these persuaders reports, but despite that, workers are still organizing, they are still winning elections and reaching first contracts,” said Poydock. “They’re trying to erode worker rights, not just for union workers or workers trying to form unions, but workers at large.”
Researchers contend that the obstacles workers face do not end after a successful union election. A previous EPI study cited in the report found that employers are charged with violating labor law in 41.5 percent of union elections. The report also notes that workers wait an average of 465 days to secure a first union contract after winning representation rights. In some cases, negotiations have stretched much longer. Starbucks workers, for example, have yet to secure a first contract since employees at the company’s first unionized U.S. store voted to organize in 2021.
For labor advocates, those delays demonstrate how procedural tactics can weaken organizing momentum even after workers prevail at the ballot box. Employers retain the option to voluntarily recognize unions or agree to neutrality agreements, but many instead pursue lengthy legal and bargaining processes.
“Unionizing is much harder than it should be,” Wiggin said in a press release. “That’s partly because there are no limits on the amount of time and money employers can invest in union avoidance, and because employers are only required to disclose a tiny fraction of anti-union campaign spending due to reporting loopholes.”
Despite the billions spent opposing union campaigns, researchers emphasize that workers continue organizing across a wide range of industries. Elections continue to be won, organizing drives continue to emerge, and first contracts continue to be negotiated. The report argues that the persistence of those efforts illustrates the continuing demand among workers for collective bargaining despite significant employer resistance.
“Employers always have the choice to voluntarily recognize a union or agree to a neutrality agreement,” said Wiggin. “If they don’t, that’s a choice to try to bend the will of workers who are seeking to exercise their rights to free association, and that’s immoral and offensive to democratic values and the right to free association.”
COMMENTS